Souvenir
by Azkabella
Summary: The Doctor knew he was doomed to think about that night until the day he died, a day he had prepared to face on Trenzalore. The the universe had other plans, however - plans he never saw coming.
1. Chapter 1

The Doctor stepped back into the TARDIS with a renewed sense of hope swelling in his chest, almost as if it was something in the air that he had breathed into his lungs. Clara was standing on the other side of the control room, her lips curled into a small smile as she dragged her fingers along the edge of the console. She looked up when she saw him enter the TARDIS and her smile broadened, which made his chest swell with a completely different emotion.

"So?" she asked.

"So what?" he replied.

"So, what now?"

They gravitated towards each other, each leaning against the edge of the console as the air in the room grew thicker. The Doctor crossed his arms over his chest and bowed his head for a moment while he considered Clara's question.

"There's still Mesopotamia. Or we skip ahead to the moon."

The corners of her lips twitched. "I could go for a cocktail right about now."

He smiled brightly at her. She laughed. Unable to resist any longer, the Doctor dipped down and wrapped his arms tightly around her waist, earning a gleeful squeak of surprise from Clara in return as she circled her arms around his neck. They lingered in each other's embrace for a second longer than usual, and then that second continued into several more. The Doctor slid one hand up her back and dipped his chin against her shoulder, his grin slipping when he felt her fingers press into the back of his neck.

"I didn't burn the planet," he said, his voice a lot lower in his throat than he meant for it to be.

He could feel her grinning. "I know."

"Because of you," he added, pulling back to look at her. "_You_, Clara Oswald_,_ are _amazing_."

She gave a little shrug and wrinkled her nose. "I know."

He laughed lightly and shook his head at her cheeky reply. Then, after another surge of emotion bubbled inside his chest, the Doctor cradled her face in his hands and kissed her on the lips. The look on Clara's face when he pulled away reminded him that he didn't normally do that, and the Doctor's hearts practically vibrated in his chest as he struggled to recover.

"Uh… right. I mean, um…"

A smile spread across her face as he continued babbling. The Doctor wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, because sometimes Clara smiled when she was angry. He carried on in a state of panic, uttering a series of sounds that didn't even resemble words until Clara stood on her tiptoes and pecked him on the lips, effectively silencing him. He looked at her in surprise, suddenly unsure of what it was that happening between them. He could feel the heat radiating through her clothes and was strongly aware of the places where their bodies touched; it awakened a longing in him that he normally had no difficulty pushing aside, but now as he looked into her eyes he found he didn't want to.

He could still see Clara standing in that barn on Gallifrey, looking up at him with tears in her eyes as she reminded him what he was, what he stood for, and more importantly, what it was he loved about her.

"Clara…" he began, but her name was the only thing he could give voice to.

She nodded in response, seemingly interpreting her name as a question. The Doctor released a hopeful breath and then dipped forward, kissing her once again. He sank into her embrace and an involuntary hum escaped his throat as her tongue brushed against his.

Suddenly she was stepping back, her gaze centred on his chest. "We shouldn't."

He covered his disappointment with a laugh and took a step back. "You're right."

"I mean—What are we doing?" she said with a nervous smile, forcing a laugh to dispel the tension.

He laughed with her but bowed his head, watching his foot scuffle against the floor. "I don't know! Being silly."

Their laughter died out quickly, leaving an awkward silence behind that neither of them knew how to fill. The Doctor glanced down at Clara's slender fingers curling against the fabric of his shirt. Her hand had landed on his chest when they'd been laughing, but now he met her eyes and felt that laughter was the furthest thing on his mind.

Without a second thought, the Doctor stepped forward planted an impassioned kiss on her lips that had Clara staggering backwards. For the briefest of moments he feared she would push him away again, but then her arms snaked tightly around his neck and she moaned softly against his lips. He released his own sound of satisfaction as Clara's body pressed firmly into his and his every nerve ending screamed out to her. Never before in his centuries of living had he ever felt so alive.

He lifted her off of the ground and started walking—quickly. Clara tightened her arms around his neck and squealed when he hopped down the steps leading away from the console room and started marching through the labyrinthine corridors that led to her bedroom door.

The Doctor hesitated before going in. This all felt too rushed, too spontaneous, and he worried they weren't giving this enough thought, but there was something hazy in Clara's eyes that reminded him of why his feet had led them to her door. He was breathing heavily, both from lust and the exertion of carrying her in his arms, and he watched Clara's gaze drop from his down to his lips.

He wanted her. He always had, but it always felt unfair. Every romantic relationship he'd ever enter into had been a train wreck; he ruined people's lives and even sometimes ended them, and if they didn't end up resenting him, he always resented himself. But today he didn't feel like the man who left destruction in his wake because he knew he could be better, he knew that all he had to do was try, and in his arms was the woman who'd reminded him that he was more than just a destroyer of worlds—and, _God_—he hoped he never destroyed hers.

Standing in front of her bedroom door with their arms and thoughts wrapped around each other, both contemplated their next move and knew what it would mean if they stepped inside. They also considered the alternative, however, and in an instant Clara pulled the Doctor's lips to hers in a deep kiss that answered his unspoken question. He fumbled with the door handle and they nearly fell into the room once it opened. She dropped to her feet and switched on her bedside lamp while the Doctor closed the door and removed his coat. Clara unbuckled the belt on her leather jacket and slid it off her shoulders, and the sight of so much red made his hearts beat that much faster. He realised he wasn't moving when she looked up at him apprehensively, so he stepped forward and placed his hands at her waist, matching her light smile as she slid her palms up to his shoulders.

The Doctor swallowed hard before leaning down and kissing her, this time with less blind confidence now that he knew this escalating into something more intimate. Kissing Clara was something he had thought about on countless occasions, especially whenever she was talking and he found his gaze fixated on her lips. It felt impossible that they were actually standing in her bedroom with their lips and hands on each other, but then again it felt impossible that he had saved Gallifrey after she had given him the simple reminder that he could.

But then Clara was his impossible girl; she made everything that shouldn't be possible into reality.

He sighed against her lips and she tugged him towards her bed, backing into it until her legs hit the edge and she was forced to sit on the mattress. The Doctor fell forward with her, his hands pressing into the mattress on either side of Clara's hips until she stretched back against her pillow with his long body settled heavily on top of hers.

He wanted to devour every sound she made, kiss every inch of her exposed skin, and inhale her scent until it consumed him. His fingers deftly moved down the front of her dress, unbuttoning it until her bare skin was exposed to the sultry air. He placed his hand on her stomach and caressed her smooth skin, kissing and nibbling his way up from her navel until she pulled his lips back to hers for a searing kiss.

The heat between them escalated and their movements became more frantic. Clara's fingernails scraped lightly against his skin as she tugged his shirt from his trousers, and somehow in trying to extricate himself from his sleeves, he got his shirt tangled around her neck. Clara threw the shirt to the floor and laughed, the sound putting a wide grin on his face as she placed her palms on his bare chest and gazed into his eyes. The Doctor wrapped his arms around her shoulders and kissed her cheek, her neck, the soft swell of her breast, all while fumbling at the fastening of her bra. Clara made a frustrated noise and then sat up, forcing him to do the same, so she could reach behind her and release the hooks.

Almost hesitantly, she peeled her bra away and then let it drop to the floor, her eyes rising to meet his. She kissed him tenderly, her lips softly moving against his as her fingers worked at the button and zipper of his trousers. He gasped when she took him in her hand and dug his fingernails into the backs of her arms, leaving tiny indentations in her flesh. He kissed her with a rising passion and felt her moan of pleasure vibrate through him as his hand slipped beneath the thin fabric of her knickers.

With a driving need, they both removed their last bits of clothing and then merged without hesitation. Clara released a stifled cry when he pushed into her clutched his arms tightly. Her gaze locked with his, unflinching until he pulled back and pushed into her again. She threw her head back against the pillow and slammed her eyes shut, releasing a deep moan that would haunt him every night for weeks, months years. He moaned against her neck and along the line of her jaw, planted kisses on her cheek and in her hair, and when his muscles stiffened and the room filled with stars, his lips fell slack against her throat where he expelled a heavy, satisfied breath against her skin.

The rapid beating of their hearts and heavy breathing composed a symphony to fill the silence as they lay together, their limbs tangled in a languid heap. Neither said a word or looked at the other, and the Doctor's throat constricted with panic as the haze cleared and reality settled in. He hesitated a moment before lifting his head and looking into Clara's eyes, but what he saw shining there was as far from dread or regret as it could be. He pressed his lips against hers for a kiss that was fuelled by something other than passion, and he once again counted his lucky stars for having Clara Oswald in his life.

"Hey," she breathed, dazzling him with a smile.

The Doctor bowed his head and chuckled softly before returning his eyes to hers. "Hey, you."

* * *

They kept running after that. It should have been impossible for them to carry on the way they had been before, for him to look at her without feeling guilty or like he'd taken advantage, or for him not to feel obligated to her in a way that didn't really suit a Time Lord, but once again, the impossible was always possible with Clara.

"Hello, the TARDIS."

"Emergency: you're my boyfriend."

"Ding, dong! OK, brilliant!"

They returned to Trenzalore, a planet the Doctor had hoped to avoid for at least another two hundred years or so. When he saw the crack whose return he had dreaded since the second big bang, the Doctor knew immediately that he had to send Clara away. He sent her back to the TARDIS without as much as blinking because he knew that he had to stay and fight a long, perhaps endless battle to save the universe from another Time War, and she couldn't live out the rest of her life trapped by his side.

He did it for her, but on a deeper, more selfish level, he did it so he wouldn't have to watch time render her into dust.

He bowed his head as the familiar sound of the TARDIS dematerializing filled the air and felt something hollow in his chest when it was followed by silence. Days later when it reappeared on the surface of Trenzalore, he would walk around inside looking for her with the absurd hope that Clara had hidden away in some room and was waiting to jump out and shout at him for sending her away. There were nights when he would spend hours roaming the endless corridors of the TARDIS, his feet eventually leading him to her bedroom door, where he would stand with his hand hovering over the handle until he expelled a heavy sigh and walked away.

Those nights were usually followed by years when he wouldn't even step foot inside the TARDIS, years when he could only look at the old girl from the safety of his bedroom window, from where it was harder to think about Clara and everyone else he had left behind.

Then one day—he didn't know why, he didn't know how—the crack shut. He had been pacing restlessly across the floor when the entire room quaked beneath him and then, in the blink of an eye, the crack was gone. The Doctor ran outside and looked to the sky, where the familiar lights of the hovering ships disappeared as if someone had flicked an off switch.

He confirmed his enemies' retreat with Tasha Lem, who was just as baffled by the sudden end of the standoff as he was.

"What will you do now, Doctor?" she asked as he prepared to leave her ship in favour of his own. "Fly off in your TARDIS, never look back?"

"I've grown quite fond of Christmas," he said, turning back to Tasha with a grin. "In fact, there's one on Earth that I'd rather like to return to."

It had been so long since he'd flown the TARDIS that he feared he had forgotten, but as soon as he stepped up to the console, the Doctor started pulling levers and flicking switches without sparing a second thought. When he landed back on Earth, he ran his fingers nervously through his hair and then stepped outside onto the twilit lawn on that chilly Christmas day, the same day he had sent Clara back to two hundred and thirty-nine years ago. He quickly ascended the steps to the seventh floor and tried to think of what he'd say to her when he she opened her door, finding himself at a loss for anything past "hello".

It had only been a few hours for her since he'd sent her away, so she was likely to be angry. Probably _really_ angry. He should probably prepare for a good slap, something he anticipated with dread even though he knew he really deserved it.

He should have said goodbye and he shouldn't have tricked her, but it was too late to change that now.

Taking a deep breath, the Doctor rang the doorbell to Clara's flat and waited, his hearts beating rapidly as he anticipated seeing her face again.

"No, Sam—_Wait_!" she called impatiently from inside.

The door opened and a little boy of about four or five years old looked up at him.

"Hello," said the Doctor, kneeling down to greet the boy with a surprised smile. "Where did you come from?"

A ceramic dish crashed to the floor. The Doctor's eyes followed the splatter of chestnut dressing to the corner of the hallway, where Clara stood with two red oven mitts in her hands and a ghastly look of shock on her face. Her hair was shorter and wavier than he remembered it being, and looking closely, he noticed that the lines around her eyes were more defined.

He hadn't missed the mark by a few hours, but a few years.

"You…" she said, her voice no louder than a breath as her round eyes bore into his.

"Clara…"

He meant to apologise, to say something to explain why he'd sent her away and why he'd returned so late, but the sound of his voice must have shocked her out of her stunned silence. The little boy jumped out of the way when Clara leapt over the food littering the carpet and started slapping the Doctor hard in the chest.

"You—tricked_—_me!" she cried breathlessly between surprisingly painful blows. "You stupid—_bloody_—!"

"Mummy!" the boy cried in alarm, his eyes filling with tears of panic. "Mummy, no! We mustn't hit!"

With a gasp, Clara backed away from the Doctor, whose eyes shot to the little boy watching them both with fearful eyes. And he felt it—all of those years in Christmas, all of those battles and all of those restless nights, those fleeting days—all of them dissolved into nothing when he realized the years Clara had spent without him here on Earth.

"Mummy?" said the Doctor breathlessly, his eyes shifting back and forth between her and the boy.

She pressed her lips into a firm line and nodded, holding back tears as she looked at him with the same longing he felt in his hearts.

"You—" He licked his lips. "You have a son?"

Her chest rose and fell with several heavy breaths before she responded once again with the impossible.

"So do you."


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **Thanks for the reviews for the first chapter! More to come in the next week or so, but expect longer gaps between the next updates... School and stuff :/

* * *

**Chapter Two**

Her father came running in from the dining room when he heard the commotion. Upon seeing the Doctor, Dave Oswald immediately began shouting all of the horrible things Clara had thought about the Time Lord over the past four years in the form of rapid fire accusations. The Doctor blinked rapidly and swayed back on his feet as he let the younger man rail on him, but Clara couldn't bear to hear it and neither could her son; Sam was clearly overwhelmed by the sight of his mum and granddad shouting angrily at some strange man at their door.

"Dad, take Sam into the other room, please."

Dave turned to his daughter and sputtered out her name in surprise.

"_Please_," she insisted tearfully.

Without another word, Dave lifted Sam off of the floor and carried him into the other room, leaving Clara and the Doctor alone at the door. His panicked eyes met hers and Clara inhaled sharply, unable to quell the powerfully familiar emotions that stirred whenever he looked at her.

"That's…" he began, his gaze shifting to the corner behind which her dad and Sam had disappeared.

"Yes."

"I'm… But you and I never…"

Her eyebrows shot towards her hairline. "Oh, but we _did._"

The Doctor snapped his eyes shut and shook his head. "Right, yes. Sorry."

"Glad to see it was so easily forgotten," she muttered resentfully.

"No, that's not…" he insisted softly with a sigh of frustration, running a hand over his face as his eyes continued to dart back and forth between her and the hallway corner. "I didn't think—"

"Well, you never do, do you?" Clara interrupted, anger rising. "You just jump blindly from one stupid decision to the next without caring who you hurt or what you leave behind."

He looked at her like he was holding his breath, fearful of saying anything that would further upset her, but then he shook his head in reply and that alone was enough to set her off again. She cried out softly and punched him repeatedly in the chest, near sobs when the Doctor finally grabbed hold of her wrists and held them against his chest so that she would stop. Clara sank against him, clutching at his lapels as she wept into the purple fabric of his coat.

"I _hate_ you," she said, barely loud enough for him to hear.

She spoke with no conviction, but even if he suffered the sting of her words, the Doctor still tightened his arms around her in silent apology. Clara could feel her knuckles growing stiff, so she released his coat, stepped back a few paces, and hurriedly wiped the tears from her face. She couldn't look at him without feeling like she'd burst into tears—proper, uncontrollable, gut-wrenching sobs that she had long since associated with missing him.

"So, did you do it?" she asked with a slight edge in her voice. "Did you save the planet?"

"Yes."

She pressed her lips firmly together and nodded sharply. The Doctor shifted his weight from one foot to the other and said nothing more, leaving it to her to ask the questions. She didn't know if she should see this as a kindness or of cowardice; he'd always been prone to both.

Clara suddenly thought of the chestnut dressing that was now caking into her carpet and of how she was soon supposed to be having Christmas dinner with her family. She then thought of the Christmas dinner four years ago she'd asked him to help her with, but he'd taken her turkey and left her alone without even warning her.

"You didn't say goodbye," she said.

"I know. I—I couldn't."

"_Why_?" she demanded bitterly, eyes finally meeting his.

The Doctor's chest rose and fell with heavy emotion, his eyes softening as he tilted his head to the side. She might as well have asked him to cut off his right hand, given the look on his face. "Clara…"

She laughed mirthlessly, flashing her teeth. "You can't even say it, can you? I don't know why I expected anything different."

Fresh tears once again threatened to spill from her eyes and Clara hardened her features, her lip quaking when she spoke again.

"You know…" She thought about stopping there, about not telling him, but she wanted him to know what it was like. She wanted him to know what he'd done to her. "I waited for you every day. It's stupid—I should have known better—but that's what I did. I waited for you to show up at the doctor's when I went in for my scans, I waited for you every night that ended with the sun rise because I couldn't sleep for thinking about you and the baby…" She took a deep breath. "I waited for you in hospital and prayed to God you'd be there when he was born, even though I kept telling myself you must be dead because you _never_ came back. I watched our son grow teeth and learn to crawl and walk and speak and _still, _you weren't there… and I was still waiting."

He remained silent, his eyes glued to hers. Clara released a shaky breath as her tears finally spilled from her eyes.

"And now, four years later…" She waved her hand and felt her voice crack. "Here you are."

She stood still for a moment, limbs shaking from the will she exerted to remain where she was, but then her last thread of restraint snapped and she stepped towards him once again. The Doctor flinched backwards in preparation for another blow, but then Clara grabbed his face with both hands and kissed him desperately on the lips.

He didn't respond right away, perhaps out of surprise, but after a moment's hesitation, he looped his arms around her waist and she buried her face against his chest. Their bodies swayed slightly as they held each other, Clara occasionally releasing shaky breaths as her heart rate slowed to normal. The Doctor finally broke the silence by releasing a long, heavy sigh into her hair.

"I'm so sorry."

"I know," she replied stuffily against his chest, her shoulders relaxing as she let go of all of her anger… or at least most of it. "I know, _I know_." She leaned back and smiled lightly up at him, her hand caressing the subtle lines gracing his once ageless face. "You look older."

"I am older," he replied gruffly.

"How long?" she asked, her heart fluttering in anticipation of the answer.

"Two hundred and thirty-nine years."

She released a tiny breath of a laugh and let her hand fall from his face. "Two hundred and thirty-nine years? Blimey, I'm surprised you still remember my name."

"I _never_ forgot you," he insisted fervently. "_Never_. Not for one second."

"That's not what it's felt like these past four years. Those piddly, insignificant four years," she added ruefully.

The Doctor swallowed around a lump in his throat and then a hesitant smile graced his lips, his expression softening. "His name is Sam?"

Clara's lips twitched. "It was my granddad's."

"And he's—"

His voice broke and he had to bite his trembling lips together to maintain his composure. Meeting Clara's eyes, he placed his hand on his chest to indicate "mine?"

"Yes," she replied almost laughingly, sniffing back tears as he blinked back a few of his own.

She forgot her own pain for a moment, which was hard to do when it was still so fresh and raw, but Clara had spent years thinking of what it would mean for the Doctor to learn he had a son. He had been separated from his own people for centuries without a family and any connections of his own, and now he had a child that shared his flesh and blood. She knew enough of her own feelings at having a child to imagine what he must be feeling.

"Is he…" The Doctor placed his hands on his hips and bowed his head, clearing his throat as he struggled to keep his cool. "Is he OK? Does he…?"

He was once again reduced to gesturing, his finger moving back and forth over his chest.

"Yes. He has two hearts."

She couldn't tell if the Doctor was upset or relieved by this news, but he accepted it with a deep breath and a single nod of his head.

"And he's clever—_dead_ clever," she added with a warm smile. She had dreamt of telling him about their son. "And he's always wandering off, getting himself lost. I'm always afraid I'm going to lose him too."

The Doctor grasped at her hands and pulled her fingers to his lips, eyes shut tight as he pressed soothing kisses against her knuckles. He was trying so hard to make things right and soothe all of the hurt he'd caused her that Clara found it difficult to stay angry. Honestly, she was so relieved to see him again that she had difficulty feeling anything else but joy.

"Can I see him?" he asked.

She frowned in reply and made a little frustrated sound, remembering her father and stepmother who were waiting with Sam in the dining room. Neither of them would understand how she could forgive the man who had abandoned her on Christmas Day with a baby on the way, especially now that he's shown up exactly four years later like a bad reminder. But Sam was _her_ son, and the Doctor was his father, so if they wanted to shout at her for letting the Doctor back into her life, then she would just have to tell them to shut it. Clara had prayed for this moment every night for the past four years, and she would be damned if either of them ruined her chance to see Sam meet his father.

She grabbed the Doctor's hand and led him through the kitchen towards the dining room, stopping mid-stride to face him before they reached the door. "Doctor… Don't tell Sam you're his father."

"OK," he replied with an agreeing nod, but then frowned. "Why?"

"Because he hasn't had one for the past three years and I'd rather not spring one on him like this."

He gazed at her in understanding, but there was a sadness in his eyes. "Then who am I?"

She smiled. "You're the Doctor," she said, feeling a warmth spread through her chest as she said those words. She reached up and smoothed his hair away from his forehead, breathing a tiny laugh when the petulant hair bounced back into place. Sam's hair was starting to do that, and it was strange that she could look at the Doctor and see more of her son in him than the other way around.

Steeling herself, Clara pushed open the door to the dining room and felt extremely exposed under the spiteful stares of her father and Linda, the latter of whom unleashed a series of admonishments on them both that immediately set Clara's blood boiling.

"Just stop it," she snapped, earning immediate if not resentful silence.

Sam was sitting in her father's lap, his hazel eyes wide with apprehension as he looked from his mother to the strange man she'd shouted at when he'd answered the door.

"Sam?" she called softly. "It's alright, my fella. C'mere."

Her heart raced as she knelt down to the floor. Clara beckoned him with her free hand and flashed him a reassuring smile after he shot his granddad a wary look. He must be so confused, so frightened. She was always telling him not to open the door, but Sam got so excited whenever the doorbell rang. She could only imagine what he was thinking, with his grandparents visiting and it being Christmas, and then suddenly this strange man appears at the door, mummy breaks the casserole dish, and everyone's shouting and hitting each other.

Her smile turned proud at his bravery when Sam slid off her father's lap and walked towards her, his little hand reaching towards hers with unquestioning trust. She grasped his tiny fingers in hers and smiled brightly, her heart fluttering so much so that she feared she might pass out at any moment.

"Mummy's sorry she scared you. You were right; we mustn't ever hit." It had broken her heart to hear him say those words; she had spoken them to him so many times over the years. "I wasn't expecting the Doctor to show up," she explained, simplifying the very complex situation yet remaining honest. She never lied to her son. "That's who this is… The Doctor."

The Doctor was watching Sam with an almost fearful look in his eyes. Sam stared back at him with a sense of wonder and an understandable amount of trepidation.

"So when I saw him at the door," Clara continued, "I was surprised and a little angry, and I acted like I shouldn't. That was very wrong of Mummy."

Sam nodded and Clara smiled gratefully. She brushed her fingers against his cheek and then felt her smile wane when she glanced up at her father and Linda.

"Would you mind checking on dinner?" she asked, standing.

Her father remained where he was, his arms crossed over his chest and a severe look on his face. Linda thankfully didn't utter a word, but she looked as though she had something stuck in her throat.

"_Please_, Dad."

He still didn't move, but then after shooting the Doctor a severe look, Dave Oswald uncrossed his arms and walked towards the kitchen, carting Linda along with him. After the door closed behind them, Clara knelt back down and smiled at Sam.

"So, is it alright if the Doctor says hello?"

Sam grimaced. "Is he going to give me a shot?"

She laughed and rubbed his arm. "No, sweetheart. He's not that sort of doctor."

"OK," Sam relented, otherwise unperturbed by the notion.

Clara looked up at the Doctor, who now wore a hopeful look in his eyes as he crouched down beside her. She released his hand and shifted into a more comfortable position on her knees to watch him interact with her son. _His _son_. _Clara pressed her fingers to her lips to keep from crying.

"Hello," the Doctor said with a smile, his lips curling around the word as his green eyes took in everything about the boy standing in front of him. "I'm the Doctor."

"Mummy said."

That earned a little laugh. "Yeah, she did. And you're Sam." There was a pause where the Doctor seemed to let that statement sink in. "It's really, very nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you, too."

Clara was smiling so hard her cheeks were sore. Her tearful gaze moved from one tousle-haired boy to the next as they continued to acquaint themselves with each other.

"So how old are you, Sam?"

"Three."

"Oh _wow_, really? I would have guessed you were at least three and a half, strapping young lad like yourself. You must eat all your vegetables."

Sam giggled. "_No_."

"Nah, why would you do that? Not when there's cheesy pasta and cakes and things and—" He glanced over at Clara, who had raised both eyebrows. "I mean, you really ought to eat all your vegetables. They'l make you big and strong."

"Like you?"

The Doctor looked a big chuffed at that. "Yeah, like me. But you can eat cakes and things too, but only when your mum says," he added, flashing the boy a wink.

Clara clasped her fingers together in front of her mouth, her nerves standing on end as the Doctor placed his hands on Sam's shoulders, rubbing his arms up and down for a moment before letting go.

"Your mum says you're really clever. You get that from her, you know." The Doctor's smile widened. "She's brilliant, she is. Did anyone ever tell you?"

"_She_ does."

Clara laughed and Sam looked over at her for the first time since he and the Doctor started talking. He frowned with worry when he saw the tears in her eyes.

"Mummy, why are you crying?"

"Oh no, it's alright!" she assured him, sniffing. "Remember how Mummy cries sometimes when she's happy?"

Sam nodded, making that face he usually did when he accepted something but clearly didn't understand it.

"Well, I'm just really, very happy."

"Because it's Christmas?"

"Yes, love," she replied, ruffling Sam's hair as she looped her other arm around the Doctor's elbow and released a contented sigh of relief. "Because it's Christmas."

* * *

Clara disappeared into the kitchen after that to talk to her dad and stepmum, leaving the Doctor alone with Sam in the dining room/lounge. He could hear Clara arguing softly with them both, frequently shushing Linda and her father whenever either of them spoke too loudly. Thankfully, the Doctor had a clever plan to distract Sam from the domestic disturbance.

"Hey, look at this." He pulled his sonic screwdriver from his pocket and gave it a whir, the green light and funny sound earning a tiny gasp of excitement from the young boy. "This is a sonic screwdriver. It lights up and makes little sounds. Can I show you?"

Sam nodded excitedly and the Doctor adjusted the setting so that he could do a rudimentary scan of the boy's vitals. Sam giggled as the Doctor waved the sonic back and forth in front of his face and then swung it away, releasing the dampeners so that he could get a good look at the readings.

Sam did indeed have bi-vascular system and a neurological makeup that was more Time Lord than human, but otherwise he appeared to be a perfectly ordinary, human boy. _Other than the two hearts and advanced brain activity,_ the Doctor thought to himself as he pocketed the sonic. _I wonder how Clara's kept that a secret all of these years._

He sighed heavily with guilt at the very thought.

"Doctor, are you a bad man?" Sam asked curiously.

The Doctor sat up a little straighter. "I like to think not. Why do you ask?"

"Mummy says I'm not supposed to open the door in case there's bad men outside, and she was really mad when she saw you."

"Oh, I know, but like she said—She didn't expect to see me. She hasn't seen me in a very long time."

"Why not?"

"Well, I've… I've been away."

"On holiday?"

The Doctor bobbed his head from side to side. "Ehh—sort of."

"Did you bring her anything back?"

"Sorry?"

"Mummy always likes it when Granddad and Granny bring her treats when they come back from holiday. Maybe that's why she got so cross, because you forgot her treat."

The Doctor smiled at him. "Do _you_ get cross when you don't get treats, Sammy?"

Sam grinned sheepishly and tucked his ear into his shoulder. "No."

"I don't believe you," the Doctor replied through grinning teeth as he poked playfully at the boy's sides, causing him to squirm and giggle at his touch. "I bet you get really, _really_ cross when you don't get your treats."

"No, _no_!" Sam laughed as the Doctor continued to tickle his sides.

The kitchen door flew open and Clara and her father appeared from the other side, looking worried.

"What's going on?" Dave demanded.

* * *

_Five minutes ago_

"I'll be right back," Clara said to her boys before entering the kitchen and closing the door behind her. She leaned against the back of it and closed her eyes, expelling the tension in her nerves with one breath before she stood up straight and faced her father.

"Clara, what's going on?" he demanded immediately, sounding more worried than angry. "Where the hell did hecome from?"

"I can't believe you're leaving Sam in there alone with him," Linda said in shock, the look in her eyes clearly indicating that she was tempted to storm past Clara and rescue Sam from the man she'd called a 'deadbeat scumbag' for the past four years.

"Shh, both of you!" Clara hissed. "I know what you're thinking, believe me, but it's more complicated than you realise."

"You've been saying that for the past four years, but I still don't believe it," her dad replied severely. He started pacing the two feet between Linda and the kitchen counter. "You've had to raise that little boy on your own this entire time, and now _he_ shows up out of the blue and you're just what—happy to see him?"

"Yes!" Clara insisted. "Of course I'm happy to see him."

"But he _left_ you, Clara," Linda reminded her, not unkindly. "He left you at Christmas."

"I know, _I know_; I really don't need reminding. But none of that changes the fact that he's Sam's father, and that I—"

Clara inhaled sharply, unable to say the words to her father and Linda that she had yet to say to the Doctor. Words she had yet to say to herself.

"Please, can we make it through dinner without either of you saying anything in front of Sam?"

Linda scoffed. "You expect us to eat dinner and pretend like we're all one big happy family with the man who walked out on you?"

"Yes," Clara snapped, her patience wearing thin.

Linda shot Dave a pleading look. He sighed. "Clara, I don't know…"

"_Please_, Dad. It's Christmas." She chewed on the inside of her lip as she considered her next words. "Gran would have helped me."

Dave stood up a little taller at the mention of his mother. "Your gran would have been worried for Sam."

"_I'm_ worried for Sam," she admitted softly, blinking back tears. She was so tired of crying. "So please, can you just—?"

"No, no!" Sam squealed from the other side of the door.

Clara turned and pushed the door open, relieved to see the Doctor and Sam both smiling, but her father pushed past her with a frown.

"What's going on?" he asked.

The Doctor's wide eyes met his. "Sorry," he said, smoothing back the wrinkles on Sam's jumper. "Sam and I were just having a laugh." He smiled fondly at the boy and tapped his cheek with his finger before standing. He glanced back and forth between Clara and her father before leaning towards her, speaking softly. "Perhaps I should go."

"Perhaps you should," Dave agreed.

"What? No!" Clara said, grabbing hold of the Doctor's hand as he turned into the hallway. "What are you talking about?"

"Just for a bit," he clarified. "Let you all have your Christmas dinner. I didn't mean to spoil it, I swear."

He was referring to more than just their Christmas dinner, and Clara felt a lump in her throat as he held her gaze. He attempted to pull his hand away again, but Clara wouldn't let go. A tiny whimper escaped her lips and the Doctor's expression softened.

"Clara, I'm not going to leave. I promise."

She couldn't let go of his hand, even though part of her wanted to believe him. She reminded that stubborn part of herself that she was worried for Sam and that she didn't want the Doctor popping in and out of his life like that, but the truth was that she couldn't bear to watch him leave after finally getting him back.

"Give me your key," she said.

"What?"

"To the TARDIS. Give it to me so I know you can't leave."

The Doctor looked rather hurt that Clara didn't trust him, but he didn't argue before pulling chain from under his collar and dropping it and the silver key into the palm of her hand.

"And the one under the quiff."

He smirked. "Clara, it's been over two hundred years. My hair finally _did_ grow back."

"The other one, Doctor."

He pulled the second key out of his pocket and placed it into her palm next to the other one, then curled her fingers around the keys so that he could press a kiss to the back of her hand. He smiled at her and Clara smiled tentatively back, her eyes momentarily growing lost in his.

"Say goodbye to Sam before you go," she said. "And promise him you'll come back."

The Doctor nodded and walked past her into the room, where he bent forward and told Sam that he was going to leave for a bit, but that Sam ought to have a nice Christmas dinner with his family and that he looked forward to seeing him later. Clara held onto the doorframe and watched the scene transpire, knowing that she would regret having him promise to come back if he didn't, but she knew he was more likely to return if he knew Sam was waiting for him.

She followed the Doctor to the door and watched him leave, unable to shut the door behind him until several seconds after he disappeared down the stairwell.

The oven timer went off just as she turned the lock on the door.


	3. Chapter 3

Her father didn't say another word about the Doctor once the door had closed behind him, but Clara could tell that he was thinking about him all throughout dinner. Dave told his grandson stories about when his mother was a little girl, upsetting Linda with frequent mentions of Ellie and the happy memories they had shared without her. Linda remained silent for the most part, which was unlike her, but Clara didn't look the gift horse in the mouth and instead ate her turkey as she listened for sounds of the TARDIS dematerialising. The Doctor had given her the keys, but she was still afraid of him finding a way to leave. She caught Sam looking at her anxiously and smiled, giving him a reassuring wink.

When it was finally time for her dad and Linda to go, Clara and Sam walked with them to the door to say goodnight. After saying goodbye to his grandson, Dave Oswald met his daughter's eyes and heaved a knowing sigh.

"I'm not going to stop worrying about you just because you give me that look, young lady."

"What look?"

"The look that says I'm being overprotective. Of course I'm being overprotective."

He placed his hands on either side of her face and kissed her on the forehead. Clara smiled and placed a hand over one of his and nodded once in understanding. Things had been difficult for them both after her mum had died, but Dave Oswald had struggled the most with letting his little girl grow up and make mistakes of her own when he knew how easily he could lose her too. It didn't help that her biggest struggle in adulthood involved raising a child on her own after some strange naked man abandoned her at Christmas.

"I love you," he said.

"Love you too, Dad."

"I love you, Granddad!" Sam called after him as the door shut.

Clara hefted the boy onto her hip and smiled at him. "Did you have a good Christmas?" she asked, smoothing his hair away from his forehead and smiling wryly as it bounced back into place.

"Yes!"

"Did you like all your presents?"

"Yes."

"Was it nice to see your Granny and Granddad?"

"Yes, and the Doctor!"

She had started walking towards the bathroom, but paused at the door as a small smile tugged at the corners of her lips. She shook her head, wondering at how she could ever doubt the Doctor's ability to charm his way into a child's heart in less than ten minutes.

"Would you like to see the Doctor again?" she asked.

"Yeah! He said he'd come back. And that he'd bring his sonic screwdriver and show me how to use it."

"_Did_ he?" Clara replied, setting him down on the bathroom floor. "Well, we'll need to get all washed up and have a good night's rest if we're going to be ready for _that_."

She ran Sam's bath and sat with him until he got distracted by his bath toys. His favourite was a toy submarine that her dad had gotten him for his second birthday that he was constantly submerging and emerging from the bubbly water. It always reminded Clara of the Cold War and the ice warrior and the several weeks she and the Doctor spent travelling from one end of the Earth to the other to find the TARDIS.

Content that Sam could occupy himself for a while, Clara went into kitchen and cleaned up what was left of Christmas dinner, pausing every now and then to look out the window at the blue box on the lawn. She hadn't even thought of where the Doctor would go when she took his keys… perhaps he had gone down to the pub, although the very thought seemed far too mundane for him. It was more likely he would get himself into a scrape of trouble. She ought to turn on the news and see if the world had been spared from alien intruders disguised as Christmas trees. Wherever he was, she hoped he was alright. And that he'd come back soon.

* * *

The Doctor hadn't known what to do with himself when he left Clara's flat, so he had just started walking. He walked down the seven flights of stairs, up the several blocks that led past the nearest underground station, and then around several street corners as he passed all sorts of pubs and off-licenses and even the local post office. Yet even though his feet carried him through the streets of London, his mind was a million miles away.

He thought of that night in the TARDIS and how he'd succumbed to the temptations he'd long since denied himself, all because Clara had reminded him that he was capable of making the right choice, of being a good man. He thought of the salty taste of her skin and the way her hair had spilled onto the pillow when she moaned his name. He thought of that day on Trenzalore when she did as she was told without asking questions and all of the days that followed when he regretted never saying goodbye. He thought of all of her days here on Earth, especially the ones where she stood in the mirror with her hands on her swollen belly or when she cried with their infant son when nothing she did could soothe him.

He thought of what it would have been like if he had arrived four years ago like he should have. Clara's anger would have subsided quickly, he could have had another chance on leaving a better impression on her family, and then he could have watched her grow and been there when Sam was born. But would have been any good at being a father? Because even though he looked human, he definitely wasn't one, which meant more than just having two hearts and a complex body chemistry. He didn't know how to operate when stuck in the same place and time for too long, if the past two centuries on Christmas were any indication. He'd played with the children and socialised with the adults, but for the most part, the Doctor had kept to himself, often spending several nights sulking in clock tower as he waited for his last days to come.

But then he thought of how much easier those days would have passed if Clara had been there to prevent him from sulking alone. She had always been good for him, something he selfishly realised was one-sided, because he couldn't think of much good he'd done her. Because of him, she'd had her life torn into a thousand pieces and scattered across time, but even after he saved her, he still found away to complicate her life and break her heart.

_But then there's Sam_, he thought with a faint smile as he sat on a bench in the nearby park. He still couldn't believe he had a son—that _they_ had a son—and that he was healthy and perfect and safe. He knew that was all down to Clara; it mustn't be easy raising a child who wasn't quite human, and he could imagine some of the lengths she had gone to in order to protect him. The Doctor smiled sadly as he thought of what it would have been like to be there when Sam was born, to hold him in his arms for the first time and watch him open his eyes. But even now just hours after discovering he existed, the Doctor knew he would do everything in his power to keep him safe, to keep them both safe.

_Mummy says I'm not supposed to open the door in case there's bad men outside._

The bells of a nearby church were tolling half nine when the Doctor started running.

Bad men could be anyone—strangers with candy, shady neighbours, even just loud kids with skateboards who wear their hoods up. Those are generally terrifying to mothers, but this wasn't an ordinary mother or an ordinary little boy.

_Doctor, are you a bad man?_

He skidded to a halt in front of her door and knocked rapidly before placing his hands on his knees and struggling to catch his breath. He could really feel the last two hundred years weighing him down.

Clara looked both surprised to see him and concerned by the state he was in when she opened the door.

"Why is Sam afraid of bad men, Clara?" he asked breathlessly.

"Shh, he's just gone to bed."

"He has? Is he alright?"

The Doctor brushed past her and into the flat, but Clara grabbed him by the arm to stop him before he could barge into Sam's room.

"Doctor, he's fine. What's going on?"

"He said he's not supposed to open the door because of bad men outside. What bad men? What are you scared of?"

She heaved a heavy sigh. "Let me put the kettle on."

They sat at the dining table in silence while Clara watched the steam rise and curl from the surface of her tea. She stared at the cup in her hands as if the simple act of holding was itself a comfort, and the Doctor felt himself smiling as he reached for his first sip of tea.

"I knew right away that the baby wasn't going to be normal. Or well, not exactly human," she countered, frowning at her original choice of words. "So, shortly after I found out I was pregnant, I called Kate Stewart."

"Good," he said with an approving nod, then froze. "Ah—So then, Kate knows that you and I…?"

He gestured back and forth between them and Clara smiled at him incredulously.

"Yeah, I think she figured it out."

He swallowed nervously and tried not to look too embarrassed by this news. "Right. Go on."

"They wanted me to come into UNIT HQ for some testing… Quite a lot of testing, actually. At first I was all for it; I wanted to make sure the baby was OK and honestly, that I would be OK carrying him to term. And by the way," she added in a heavier tone, leaning forward against the edge of the table with an accusatory look in her eyes. "_Your_ little Time Lord baby didn't want to come out until a month and a half past his due date."

"Ah, yes, well, you see… the gestational period for a Time Lord is generally a bit…" He froze upon seeing the look on Clara's face. "Please continue."

"I started getting calls from doctors I'd never heard of asking me in for more tests. They claimed they worked for UNIT and that they just wanted to be sure that the baby and I were healthy, but I didn't trust them. And then I started noticing people following me."

"Following you how?" he asked, leaning forward on his knees as his features became etched with concern.

Clara shrugged. "The same black car parked outside the school everyday showed up on the street outside my flat. It was so nondescript that it wasn't exactly nondescript. And then whenever I was walking alone I would hear footsteps behind me…" She closed her eyes and shuddered visibly at the memory. "I started having nightmares that they took him from me after he was born. So I went and lived with my dad for a month or two until Kate got in touch. She told me that UNIT was aware that I'd been contacted by a possible threat to my safety and she promised to do everything in her power to make sure nothing happened to either one of us." A rather distant smile graced her lips. "I felt really comforted at first… like I had a real friend. Only I knew she was really doing it all for you."

She met his eyes and the Doctor felt a pang deep in his chest. He was no stranger to guilt or regret, but he felt as if the two emotions had collected into some dense form of matter that penetrated his hearts each time he learned of how his absence had affected Clara and their son.

"When did you find out?" he asked. "That you were pregnant?"

Clara's lips twitched and she blinked a few times. "After you sent me back."

He closed his eyes and took her hand in his, squeezing gently. He felt a sharp pain in his gut, almost like the mass of guilt and regret had migrated. Bending forward, he bowed his head against the back of her hand and took a deep, slow breath that he expelled in a heavy rush of air.

"I would fix it all if I could."

She sniffed. "You _have_ got a time machine."

The Doctor raised his eyes to hers. "That's not how it works," he said in an almost pleading tone. "Otherwise I would. God, I would go back and fix it if I could."

She turned her hand within his grasp and curled her fingers around his, squeezing reassuringly until he released the breath he hadn't been aware he was holding.

"I wish you could too," she said. "But at least you're here now."

"Oh, Clara," he said softly, kissing the back of her hand. He brushed his thumb across the spot where he'd kissed her and met her eyes, unsure of what more he could say or do for her. He owed her so much. "I never meant to leave you alone."

Her chest rose and fell with deep, shuddering breaths and tears streamed from her eyes. The Doctor leaned forward and kissed her cheek, cradling her head with one hand and lingering longer than he probably should.

Although neither of them spoke about the night they'd shared in her bedroom, there were now forced to silently acknowledge it in a way they never had before. Before, they had both come to the tacit conclusion that it had been a fluke, a result of their emotions running so high after a long, tumultuous day. There had been times afterwards, however, when the Doctor would catch himself smiling at Clara a bit longer than usual or when her fingers would brush up against his on the console and he would forget how to breathe, but then she would laugh or he would make a joke and they would revert back to the way they had always been. They were happy. She had shared with him more than he should have ever asked for, and in a way that made it easier to send her away when he needed to, but it also made it harder.

Now they had to face the truth and stop pretending that night was some neatly-contained event outside of their reality, because there was a little boy asleep in the next room as a result of it. A little boy with two hearts and hazel eyes and ears that stuck out like rocket fins. A little boy who had his mother's smile and looked at him like he already knew that he was his father.

Clara released a shaky breath and wrapped her arms around his neck, his arms automatically encircling her waist. The Doctor sank into the warmth of her embrace and marvelled at how much he could miss her presence in his life for over two centuries and yet not truly understand the depth of his love for her until he was back in her arms. Her fingers ruffled the hair behind his ear and he dipped his face in the crook of her neck, softly breathing her in.

"So," she said, clearing her throat lightly before pulling back to face him.

"So, what?" he asked.

"So… What now?"

They both laughed softly as a strange sense of déjà vu washed over them, neither fully aware that they were echoing the same conversation that had led to that night in her bedroom. The Doctor saw something shining in Clara's eyes that he had seen many times before but was never able to identify, yet now recognised as a reflection for his own sense of longing. He hadn't intended to see her ever again after sending her away, and in all honesty, he had hoped she would forget him and move on with her life. All he could ever really offer her was a life back on Earth where she could be happy and safe, but little had he known that he'd left her a reminder.

_Did you bring her anything back?_


	4. Chapter 4

Sam opened his eyes the next morning and shortly afterwards bounded out of bed as only a three-year-old boy can. He and his mum had both slept in her bed until she recently got fed up with his relentless kicking during the night, although she had told him he needed his own bed because he was "a big boy now." For the first few months of sleeping in his own room, Sam would still wake up in his mother's bed snuggled against her side, a result of sleepwalking, she told him. Sam thought it was pretty cool that he could walk in his sleep and wondered what else he did when he was asleep that he didn't know about. Maybe he went downstairs and played basketball with the boys from the third floor, or maybe he ate ice cream and watched hours of TV, and his dreams were just foggy memories of programmes he'd watched on telly.

Sam left his room and was about to open his mother's door when he heard a soft thud in the kitchen.

"Ow!"

Cautiously, he walked down the hallway and through the kitchen door, where he found a man lying on his back with his head perched under the kitchen sink, his big shoes reaching all the way to the oven.

"Doctor?"

"Sam!" he replied enthusiastically, bumping his head against the bottom of the sink cabinet as he tried to sit up.

Sam giggled. That must have been the thud he heard earlier. "Are you OK?" he asked, walking over as the Doctor slowly extracted himself from under the sink and sat up, rubbing his forehead.

"Yeah. Just thought I'd see if I could fix the clog in your drain."

"What's a clog?" Sam asked.

"Uh, stuff that gets stuck in your pipes and won't let the water flow through."

"What sort of stuff?"

"Oh, I dunno. Food… hair…"

Sam tilted his head curiously. "Are you a plumber?"

The Doctor chuckled. "Sometimes."

Sam watched him rise to his feet and was amazed at how tall the Doctor was. He was much taller than his granddad, but not quite as tall as Mr Caldwell at the market.

"Oh!" said the Doctor. "I bet you're hungry. It's breakfast time, isn't it?"

Sam nodded.

"OK, great. What do you normally eat for breakfast?"

"Pancakes and eggs."

"_Pancakes and eggs_?" the Doctor replied with delight. "That's nice. I bet your mum goes through lots of eggs, doesn't she?"

Sam nodded. The Doctor started rummaging around the cupboards and the refrigerator to pull out what he needed for breakfast.

"Doctor? Where's Mummy?"

"Hmm? Oh, she's still asleep. Best to let her sleep some more, I think. She had a rough night."

He started dumping eggs and flower into a mixing bowl, tossing eggshells into the sink with a flourish. Sam grabbed his step stool from its spot in the corner and plopped it onto the floor next to the Doctor's feet so he could climb up and see what he was doing. Unlike his mum, he didn't use measuring cups or anything as he made the pancake batter, and Sam worried that he didn't know how to make pancakes the proper way. He thought of waking his mum so she could help, but didn't want to make the Doctor angry with him since he said they should let her sleep.

The Doctor glanced down at Sam, suddenly at his side, and asked, "Do you want to help?"

"Yes, please!" The Doctor handed him the whisk and told Sam to stir everything together, "but not too vigorously or we'll make a mess." Sam nodded in understanding and started stirring confidently. "Mummy usually lets me stir," he said.

"Oh yeah?"

"Mm-hmm!" Sam chirped as he watched the lumpy batter turn smooth. "Mummy likes it when I help."

"I bet she does," the Doctor replied as he examined the batter. He flashed Sam an approving grin. "Ah! Perfect."

Sam moved his stool closer to the stove so that he could lean against the counter and watch while the Doctor poured the batter onto the hot pan. "Mummy doesn't make them that big."

"Yeah, well," the Doctor replied with a grin. "You're a big boy, aren't you? You could do with a big pancake." While the pancakes cooked in one pan, the Doctor cracked some eggs into another. "Oh… how do you like your eggs?"

Sam didn't really understand the question - eggs were eggs - but when he saw them begin to fry in the pan, he immediately panicked. "No, _no_!" he said a bit too loudly. "You've got to stir them up first and add the milk!"

"Ahh, right!" the Doctor said in a rush, whipping the eggs with a fork so that the yellow part mixed in with the white.

Sam scooted the milk carton towards him so the Doctor pour some in and then scramble the eggs almost exactly like his mum did. Sam noticed that the bubbles on the top of the pancake were popping, so he grabbed the spatula from the holder on the counter and flipped the pancake over, listening to it sizzle as the raw batter hit the hot surface.

"Nice flip," said the Doctor.

Sam grinned up at him. He really liked the Doctor, and while he didn't know what he was doing in their kitchen, he was really happy to see him again.

They both turned to the door when they heard the bedroom door open shut the hall and then the shuffling of feet that preceded his mum entering the kitchen. Her eyes were barely open and she had her arms crossed across her chest like she was trying to hold herself together. Sam never liked it when his mum was this tired; she always looked so cross.

"What's going on?" she asked in a croaky voice.

"Oh, we didn't mean to wake you," the Doctor softly, his eager smile fading when he looked over at Clara. "I was just making Sam breakfast."

"I was helping!" Sam added in case she hadn't noticed.

His mum shuffled towards him with a smile and gave his hair a ruffle like she always did, then looked up at the Doctor with her eyes open a little wider.

"I thought you would have left," she said.

"I did do," he replied, before going into a state of panic when he looked at the eggs solidifying in the pan. The Doctor shot Clara a pleading look and she calmly opened the nearest overhead cupboard and pulled out one of Sam's plates, onto which he dumped the scrambled eggs. Sam marvelled at the way they seemed to read each other's minds.

"He eats them with ketchup," she told the Doctor.

"Eww, really?" he said, turning to Sam with a sneer. "I mean—Ooh, _really_?"

"Doctor—the pancake," Sam reminded him. He had a fear that his entire breakfast was going to burn.

"Right, yes! Let's flip that bad boy next to the eggs, eh?"

Sam giggled when the Doctor flipped the large pancake onto his plate and it landed right on top of the eggs.

"Why'd you make it so big?" Clara asked as Sam continued giggling at the funny sound it had made.

"Because I always make them big. You get more pancake that way!"

She made one of her happy sounds and smiled at Sam as she poured him a cup of juice and fetched him his cutlery. Once he was finally situated at the breakfast table, Sam was too busy smothering his pancake with butter and syrup to notice her and the Doctor talking quietly together in the kitchen.

_Mmm_, he thought as he took the first bite of his pancake. The Doctor really ought to stay and make breakfast every morning.

* * *

The Doctor found it difficult to look at Clara after Sam went into the other room, although he wasn't sure why. He felt incredibly vulnerable and ill at ease when he was alone with her, so he poured another pancake into the pan so that he had something else to focus on.

She sidled up beside him, her voice at a low whisper. "He likes you."

A smile briefly graced his lips before the Doctor felt something tighten in his chest, and he could almost feel a dark cloud settle over him. "I'm glad. He's a good boy."

"Hungry?" she asked teasingly as he flipped the large pancake over.

"Starving," he replied. "I haven't been able to keep still."

"You didn't sleep at all?" she asked, more alarmed that she ought to be considering his inhuman sleeping habits. Still, she frowned when he shook his head. "You said you left. Where did you go?"

He shrugged, hoping it made him seem aloof. "Little trip in the TARDIS, just to keep her running top speed. She needs her exercise just like anyone else."

Clara's fingers dragged back and forth across the thin cabinet space at the edge of the stove, something he recognised as a nervous habit of hers. Although her body was angled away from his, he could still feel her gravitating towards him the same way he felt drawn to do with her. He fought the urge to wrap his arm around her, a struggle with which he'd been unfamiliar for the past two hundred and thirty-nine years. He had forgotten the magnetic effect she had on him.

The Doctor flipped the pancake onto a plate that Clara had silently provided for him and then held it up to her. "Pancake?" he offered, popping the 'p' and 'k' emphatically.

She accepted the proffered pancake with a grin of thanks. "Are you going to sit and have breakfast with us?"

His hand hesitated at the edge of the mixing bowl. He had intended to make a pancake for himself, but this all felt too domestic, too familiar, too much like a family. The fact that they were a family, at least genetically, didn't make this scene acceptable or right, but the Doctor wanted to stay with them so much it ate away at him to even think of saying "no." But he wasn't an ordinary man living an ordinary life.

Then again, in all likelihood, neither was their son.

He joined them at the dining table after fixing a second pancake for Sam ("He eats me out of house and home," Clara muttered) and one for himself, and he tried his best not to pretend like he had somehow earned a seat at the table with them. Sam had only met him less than twenty-four hours ago, and the truth was that Clara had spent more time with their son than she had with him, excluding all the lives of all of her echoes. He wondered idly if she still had trouble remembering them, or worse, trouble forgetting them.

Sam animatedly told the Doctor all about the Christmas presents Santa had brought him. He was evidently a big fan of books and things that he could throw, bounce, roll, or smash.

"Sound familiar?" Clara teased.

The Doctor smiled back at her and then let his eyes drift back to Sam, who was swinging his feet over the edge of the chair next to him as he continued to talk about his new toys all while stuffing his mouth with large bites of syrup-soaked pancake. He looked so much like Clara, with her sharp features and wide eyes. His lips even curled into a smile the same way hers did, dimples indenting each cheek as he gazed up at the Doctor.

"Doctor," he said. "Did you bring your sonic screwdriver with you today?"

"Yes, I did!" he replied delightedly as he patted his coat pocket in search of the device.

Clara shot him a look and shook her head to say "not right now", and the Doctor's shoulder's slumped dejectedly. So far their love for the sonic was the only thing he and Sam had bonded over. Well, now that and pancakes with the same circumference as a dinner plate. "Must have left it in the TARDIS, mate. But I'll see if I can show it to you later."

"What's a TARDIS?"

The Doctor glanced over at Clara, who leaned onto the edge of the table and propped her chin up in eager anticipation of his response. She raised both eyebrows and gave him an encouraging nod, indicating that he didn't have to lie.

Still, he wasn't sure how much she wanted him to share given her previous disapproval of the sonic, so he tread carefully. "Well, it's what I travel in."

"Is it a car?"

The Doctor half-laughed, half-scoffed and said, "Oh, it's much _cooler_ than a car."

Sam sat up a little straighter in his seat. "Is it like a helicopter?"

"Sometimes, I suppose."

"Can I see it?" Sam asked with rising enthusiasm, his eyes darting plaintively between his mother and the Doctor. "Please oh please oh please?"

Clara stood suddenly, her hips hitting the edge of the table and rattling the plates and cutlery. "You know, we should really tidy up."

The Doctor nodded in agreement but felt a twinge of disappointment in his gut. He was eager to see Sam's reaction to the TARDIS. It was always exciting to see the look of astonishment on people's faces when they first stepped through those doors, but it had been a long time since the Doctor had seen that reaction in a child of his own, so long that he couldn't even remember it. He could barely remember their faces...

Sam hadn't argued with his mother at all when she mentioned tidying up; instead he grabbed his plate, cutlery, and juice cup from the table and scurried after her into the kitchen. The Doctor couldn't help but grin as he followed their example, seeing this as evidence of Clara's domineering nature. Having teased her so much for being bossy in the past, it was quite fulfilling to see that side of her personality aligning so well with motherhood.

He felt a familiar tugging sensation in his hearts as he watched Clara wash their plates in the sink. She had always had an effect on him that he could never quite name, especially in those moments when she was going about her business and paying him no attention, like she was now. He used to catch her performing other mundane tasks, like buttoning her coat or pouring a cup of tea, or even scratching an itch the back of her arm while they sat in silence in a field on some distant moon. Odd as it may seem, he felt like those were the moments he fell in love with her—those moments when she wasn't looking.

But even after all of this time, after that night in her bedroom on the TARDIS and with their son standing there as a living reminder of it, the Doctor still couldn't allow himself to admit what all of his feelings towards Clara meant. He felt a great deal for her, emotions ranging from adoration to utter exasperation, so sometimes it was easier to pretend like certain emotions outweighed the others. Perhaps it was fruitless to try and make sense of them and he should stop thinking so hard about it, but the last time he'd allowed himself not to think, well… Sam happened.

* * *

A stiff breeze blew the vacant swings back and forth, the creaking of their chains almost drowning out the breathless laughter of the children on the playground. Sam bounced in place with eager anticipation as Clara finished zipping up his puffy green coat, energy practically seeping out of his pores.

"Go on, then," she said once she was finished, but he had already started running towards the jungle gym.

She stood with a sigh and watched her son climb to the top. He was a little monkey, he was—always climbing things or hanging upside down from them. Every now and then he would call out to her, and she would spot him hanging upside down from the highest set of monkey bars, his arms dangling towards the ground and nothing keeping him upright except the questionable grip of his knees. He always had the biggest smile on his face as he awaited her proud coo of delight, which was always masked behind a grimace of discomfort. Clara hugged herself as she stood on the side of the playground and smiled when she heard the familiar footfalls approaching behind her.

After breakfast, the Doctor had popped off to the TARDIS "to check a few things," but said goodbye to Clara and Sam before leaving. She had taken that as a good sign, seeing as the only time he'd never said goodbye was the time he left her.

His footsteps fell next to hers and she could see him in her peripheral vision, his eyes on Sam as he ran across the bridge leading up to the spiral slide. For a long time, neither of them said a word, and Clara glanced up at the Doctor with a curious smile on her face, wondering what went through his head when he looked at their son. Was he proud, terrified, humbled? Did he feel that deep, primal need to protect him from all harm? And more importantly, did he love him?

Clara knew the Doctor well enough to answer all of those questions on her own, but she also knew that two hundred and thirty-nine years could change him into something less recognisable, less familiar to her. She'd seen enough of his life to know that some things never changed, which was one of the reasons why she unwrapped the navy blue scarf she'd been holding and turned so that she was standing in front of him.

The Doctor blinked in surprise, but bent forward so she could wrap the scarf around his neck. "What's this?"

"It's freezing out and you never dress sensibly," she replied, tightening the scarf so that it was snug but didn't cut off circulation. Her fingers lingered at his lapels under the guise of tidying his appearance, and then she stepped back with a smile. "And I don't care if you can't feel the cold as much as we do."

He grinned softly at her. "Were you always this considerate?"

She forced a smile and ignored how much it hurt that he had to ask. "C'mon, Doctor—I'm a mum now. I can't help but think of these things."

Their smiles waned as they returned their attention to the playground. Sam was running back and forth across the bridge, something that drove Clara mad because the sound it made was so grating on her nerves. The sound was likely what he loved about it.

"What do you know about Sam?" the Doctor asked curiously after a brief silence. "About his biology."

She squinted up at him. The dull, white light of the overcast sky and the wind made it difficult to see, especially when the latter was whipping her hair into her eyes. Clara tucked an windswept lock behind her ear and did a mental inventory before sighing and listing everything aloud.

"He's not a Time Lord," she said to begin with. "Or human. One of the UNIT doctors actually compared him to a mule, which was _flattering_," she added with a light laugh. "I don't know if that makes me the donkey or the horse."

"The horse," the Doctor replied.

"What?"

He smiled lightly. "A mule is the offspring of a female horse and a male donkey. A hinny is the other way around."

"Oh… right." She rubbed her arms to stir up some friction and sighed. "All they really know is how he's different, seeing as they're not exactly experts on Time Lord biology. The only records they do have are on you, of course, and they're all from technology that's over forty years old."

"Forty years…? Ah," he said with a faint smile. "Right, well that was right after a regeneration—an early one, too—so they wouldn't quite match up."

"No, but it was enough to for them to tell that he's more like me than you." Clara licked her lips, which felt dry. "He can't regenerate… at least we think he can't. And he's aging at a normal rate…"

She stopped talking when she noticed the look on his face, the one where he was listening to her but her words didn't seem to surprise him or even render as news. Clara heaved a sigh.

"Why don't you save us both some time and tell me what you found out about him."

"Found out when?" he asked with a degree of annoyance, turning to her sharply.

She shook her head, smiling. "Found out when you disappeared into the TARDIS last night."

The Doctor did an awkward little dance, clearly frustrated that she'd found him out, but then sighed and placed his hands on his hips. "I didn't find out much… Could do with a proper scan with the TARDIS computer," he said delicately, as if he could tell that the very idea of Sam walking into the TARDIS made her skin crawl. "But as far as I can tell, you're right: two hearts, complex neurological makeup, a rather anomalous blood type," he added, scratching the back of his neck. "When did he learn to read?" he asked, his tone shifting.

"Two and a half."

"That's a bit early for a human, isn't it?"

Clara smiled faintly. "Yeah."

His face lit up with a grin as his eyes sought out Sam and she saw it shining brightly, that fatherly pride. She had honestly started to wonder if he felt it, because aside from his usual charm, the Doctor hadn't really treated Sam any differently from any other child they'd met previously. She wondered if he was afraid to feel too close to him, having had children in the past, children he's never talked about, save for a passing mention of his granddaughter. Over the years, Clara had wracked her brain for memories from her other lives in hopes of remembering him and his other children, but the memories of her echoes were like echoes themselves—fleeting and misleading. Their memories were only ever really fresh whenever she was around the Doctor, and even then she couldn't control which ones floated to the surface.

"And what have you told Sam?" he asked after another bout of silence. "About m—about his father."

She turned towards the Doctor ever so slightly and he lowered his gaze to hers, holding it steadily as she took a deep breath.

"For a long time, he thought my dad was his father," she said, laughing lightly so that she wouldn't cry. She _had_ cried the first time Sam had called her father "daddy," because his innocent mistake had reminded her that he may never know his own. "It was about a year ago when he started asking…" She blinked rapidly and averted her gaze from his. "... asking where his daddy was. So I told him he was away."

"Away where?" he asked.

Clara smiled tightly and then glanced up at him. "Away on holiday."

There was a dull thud and the Doctor's eyes went round with panic milliseconds before Clara heard Sam cry out.

"Sam!" the Doctor called, practically leaping over the low barrier to the playground before sprinting to wear Sam lay under the slide. Clara was a few paces behind, but only because her legs weren't as long and she hadn't been running as much these past four years. When she caught them up, the Doctor was half-kneeling on the ground and lifting Sam onto his knee. "It's OK, Sam," he said breathlessly as he lifted the boy's bloody palms up for inspection. "Oh, dear, dear—scraped your hands." He lifted Sam's palms to his lips and pressed light kisses to them both. "You'll be alright; not to worry."

Sam looked up at the Doctor almost like he was the first time he'd seen his face, but he was no longer crying. It usually took Clara longer to calm him down once he got worked up over something, and her heart fluttered in her chest when she realised why.

She knew the Doctor would dance around the subject for as long as she asked, but looking at them now, Clara had a feeling that Sam wouldn't be too shocked when he learned that the Doctor was his father.


	5. Chapter 5

_Christmas 2013_

"No, no! Don't you dare!"

Clara thrust her key towards the lock, but the dematerialising TARDIS burned her hand, or that's what it felt like. Despite her desperation, Clara flung her hand back and watched, eyes round with horror, as the TARDIS vanished completely.

"No…" she said, her voice nothing louder than a breath. "No, he didn't. He wouldn't."

A light breeze shook the branches of the nearby trees and swept her hair into her face. Clara was rooted to the spot. Seconds later—or maybe hours, it was dark now—she heard her father's voice behind her.

"Clara! Clara?" He jogged up behind her. "Clara, what are you doing out here?"

She felt hollow and disorientated as she turned to face him, and for a moment she almost didn't recognise him. Her own father.

"Clara," he said, features shifting with concern. "Are you alright?"

She couldn't even bring herself to shake her head. "He's gone."

"The er… the Swedish bloke?" he prompted, sounding far from disappointed.

She turned back to the spot on the ground where the TARDIS had landed, a square indentation in the grass the only sign that it had been there at all. Her body started quaking.

"I'm sorry, love," her dad said, wrapping an arm around her. He frowned. "Oh, Clara—you're shaking."

She cracked. Releasing a sob, Clara fell to her hands and knees in the grass as strangled cries escaped her throat, fat tears spilling from her eyes. Horrified, her dad knelt down beside her and wrapped his arm around her waist. He said her name over and over, rubbed his hand up and down her back, told her she didn't deserve to have her heart broken.

"He… He left," was all she could say.

And then she heaved the contents of her stomach into the grass.

Then Dave Oswald grew truly concerned.

* * *

_She got sick._

_So Christmas is cancelled?_

_Linda, please. Think of someone besides yourself for a change. She's clearly not alright._

_She's just upset because that strange man broke up with her at Christmas. I don't see why we should cancel dinner just because—_

_We're going to give her some space. We can come back tomorrow, heat everything up. Have dinner then._

_Oh, right. That's _really_ festive._

Clara shut her eyes after she heard the door close behind them. It reopened shortly afterwards and Clara shot up from her pillow, heart thudding as she imagined it was the Doctor come back to fetch her, to explain himself, but when she heard the familiar wrapping of knuckles on her bedroom door, she knew it was just her dad.

"Sweetheart? Are you sure you don't want me to stay?"

She settled back against her pillow and hugged it. "I'll be fine," she said, her tone contradicting her.

"Are you sure?"

She closed her eyes as tears started streaming from them once again. The disappointment she felt in hearing her father's voice instead of the Doctor's made her stomach churn again.

"I'm sure."

They returned for dinner the next day. Linda made several passive-aggressive remarks about the missing turkey and then started listing off some boys she knew that Clara should look up. Her dad and gran had a difficult time shutting her up, but eventually she stopped talking.

"Are you not going to eat anything?" her gran asked, glancing at Clara's plate.

She tried not to pout or look sullen, she really did. "I'm not really hungry," she said with a small, tight smile.

In their efforts to cheer her up, they only made things worse. Her gran talked about the first time she'd met her granddad and her dad tried to make jokes, all of which fell flat after her gran's story had already rendered Clara into a weepy mess. After telling a particularly dry joke, Clara felt bile rise in her throat and she clamped a hand over her mouth. She barely made it to the toilet in time.

She could hear her gran telling the others to stay put before she entered the bathroom and closed the door behind her. Clara couldn't look at her.

"Dear, dear," she tutted sympathetically, slowly lowering herself to a crouch so she could rub circles on Clara's back. She released a heavy breath through her nose, lips pressed tightly together, and Clara turned to look at her. "Clara, is it possible you're pregnant?"

"What?" she gasped. She smiled wryly and shook her head, gaze travelling to the back of the toilet seat. "No, no—" She paled with sudden understanding that put an icy grip on her heart. "No… I can't be."

Her gran smoothed her hair away from her face and smiled lightly, reassuringly. Clara placed her hands over her belly and listened to her body, willing it to tell her what was happening. It only answered her with possibilities.

She bought several pregnancy tests the next day and ignored the clerk at the pharmacist who shot her a look. They were all different brands, all claiming to be the most reliable test for early pregnancy. She didn't even know if any of them would work; he wasn't even _human_. It shouldn't be possible.

But later that day, when she was staring at thirteen positive pregnancy tests, Clara was forced to embrace the impossible.

She couldn't see a doctor, not a normal doctor, and she laughed miserably to herself as she thought of the only un-normal Doctor she felt she could turn to in a moment like this. But he was gone.

Still, there was someone she could call.

* * *

_February 2014_

Kate heaved a sigh before opening the plastic wrapper surrounding a set of biscuits and returned her attention back to her computer screen. She really needed to stop relying on the vending machine for sustenance, or at least supply it with better food so that her diet didn't consist solely of processed biscuits and crisps in a variety of questionable flavours. She checked the time on her watch and groaned tiredly around a bite of cream-stuffed wafer. She doubted it would do her any good to continue working this late into the night, but she knew she wouldn't sleep until everything was sorted.

"Kate."

She was the scientific head of one of the most secretive and elite organisations on the planet, the daughter of a seasoned military commander, and a woman who had faced life-threatening situations more times in her life than most people have ever licked a stamp. So it wasn't a proud moment for her when she heard the Doctor's voice and reacted by jumping out of her chair and screaming.

He looked visibly stricken by her reaction and grimaced apologetically. "Sorry... Just me."

"_Doctor_!" she tried to shout, but as she clutched her heart, Kate found she was capable little more than a breathy wheeze. "How on Earth did you get in here?"

He smirked and pulled his sonic screwdriver from his pocket, giving it a flip. "You may want to upgrade your security to something more sonic proof."

She gaped at him. Now that her shock at his sudden appearance had diminished, the shock at his very presence in her office had room to settle. Kate didn't know how much he knew or if she even had the right to tell him, but she knew better than to chalk it up to coincidence that he was in her office just hours after Clara Oswald had visited UNIT HQ.

"Why are you here?" she asked, hoping she sounded more curious than standoffish.

He pocketed the sonic and clapped his hands together, his expression very 'down-to-business'. "I need to see your medical reports on Clara Oswald."

Kate scoffed. "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid those are classified."

"Un-classify them," he said, stepping towards her. "It is imperative that I know that Clara and the baby are safe."

"So, you know?" she replied, guarding her tone so that it didn't betray any sort of emotion. She wasn't the overly-emotional sort, but after having witnessed a scared young woman weep from fear and loneliness due to the actions of the man standing in front of her, Kate found it difficult to keep her bitterness in check. "Have you talked to her?"

He blinked and bobbed his head to the side in a non-committal fashion. "That part will sort itself out later on."

"Will it?" she replied doubtfully.

The Doctor met her eyes. "Kate, please. I need your help in order to ensure that both Clara and the baby are safe."

She stood up a little straighter and nodded curtly in understanding. "I suppose you already do have clearance to view the files since you're still listed as a UNIT scientific advisor—one of the highest class, at that."

He returned her tight smile before joining her in front of her computer. Kate sat down and pulled up the relevant files, and as she typed in the passcode, the Doctor asked how many people had access to Clara's medical information.

"Only a handful of essential personnel, including myself. Clara made it clear that secrecy was paramount, and I agreed."

She watched the Doctor as he leaned towards the screen, his arm reaching across her to navigate the controls. His eyes darted from side to side, up and down, reading over each file at inhuman speed.

"Does she know you're here?" Kate asked, almost involuntarily.

His attention was so focused on the screen that she worried he hadn't noticed her speak, but after a moment his jaw tensed and he said, "Not yet."

"Are you going to tell her?"

He sighed. "Eventually. She can't know I was here, Kate. It's… important, I'm afraid, that she doesn't know."

Kate nodded in understanding, but she didn't like this situation one bit. She felt a strong urge to slap the Doctor hard across the face and wondered at what point her sympathies for Clara had grown so strong. The most bizarre part of the situation was that the Doctor—_the_ _Doctor_—this alien man who's had so many faces, many of which she's seen in real life, was actually the scorned objected of her female solidarity. She wondered what her father would say if he learned of the Doctor's behaviour, especially his views on the Doctor becoming a father himself. She smiled lightly as she imagined his stiff upper lip, feeling hers tremble.

A cloud fell over the Doctor's face all of a sudden. Kate glanced at the files on the screen in hopes of gleaning why. "What's wrong?"

He shook his head. "This doesn't make sense."

"Is something wrong?" she prompted again apprehensively.

He made a frustrated sound as he struggled to form the right words. "You humans—you might _look_ like me, but your insides are completely different. Clara shouldn't…" He nearly growled with aggravation. "Her body shouldn't be compatible."

"Are you saying then, that maybe you're not… that Clara was wrong?"

Kate was struggling to navigate this conversation without being indelicate. The Doctor spared her a curious glance and then stared at her in alarm when he realised what she was implying. "No," he said quickly, starting to fidget. "Your findings alone should prove that the baby is… mine."

She averted her eyes. The air grew tense and awkward, and the Doctor tugged at his collar with probably his hundredth complaint about the tepid air in underground facilities.

"So if it's impossible, how did it happen?" she asked. The Doctor went straight as a board and stared at her with wide eyes, his lips pressed into a fine line. Kate quickly rephrased her question. "That is to say, how could she be pregnant?"

Visibly relaxing, he heaved a sigh and glanced back at her computer screen. "Something's altered Clara's body chemistry. Not a lot; she's still technically human, but her blood sample…"

"Yes," Kate said with a nod. "Dr Jones said there was something off about it. She attributed it to the baby's influence on Clara's physiology."

"_Yes, yes_," he said impatiently, running his hand through his hair with exasperation. "But it's _more_ than that. It's like something has made her body receptive to… to…"

His inability to say it out loud finally became too much for her. "To you?"

He blushed at the implication and Kate bit back a tiny smile of amusement, feeling her own cheeks growing warm. "Beg your pardon."

He placed his hands on his hips and shifted from foot to foot, gesturing loosely as he continued to speak about the impossibility of the situation. "Her vitals are excellent—perfect, almost—although her blood pressure is a bit high. What could be causing that?"

Kate frowned at the back of his head as he bent towards the computer screen again. "Stress, I'd imagine."

He exhaled heavily through his nose and then stood up straight again. "Right. Keep a firm eye on these records and make sure they don't fall into the wrong hands." He turned towards the door. "I'll be visiting you again."

Her mouth fell open as she watched him walk towards the door. She quickly snapped it shut. "When?"

"Soon. Oh," he said, turning before he reached the door. "For you. A few days... weeks… months, maybe?" In a series of long strides, he came to stand in front of her again. "I know you're good at keeping secrets, Kate, but I do apologise for asking you to keep this from Clara. Can you trust me?"

Kate searched his face curiously. "Didn't _she_ trust you?" she asked, more to make a point than to express distaste at his behaviour.

The Doctor bowed his head and wrung his hands. "Yes. I'm hoping she still will, once I've got everything taken care of. I know I'll have to earn it back." He met her eyes. "Look after her."

She watched him walk away for the second time with even more incredulity. "What are you going to do?" she asked his retreating back.

"The same."

* * *

"Dr Murphy! Dr Murphy!" Lewis cried between heavy breaths as he ran into the lab. His hand clutched at a thick manila file folder stuffed with papers. "Janet in tech support intercepted these files… you might want to see them."

Lewis stood there panting heavily as he waited for the older man to look away from his microscope. For a moment, he feared that Dr Murphy hadn't even registered that Lewis had entered the room, but then he extended his long, thin fingers. Lewis placed the folder in his hand and watched as Dr Murphy opened the file and started flipping through the pages. Dark eyes met his.

"Tech support intercepted these files how?" he asked.

Lewis shrugged, still struggling to catch his breath. He needed to exercise more. "I dunno, but she printed out the files and then started deleting everything, and told me to run this to you right away."

Dr Murphy stood and looked down at Lewis imposingly. "Did you read these files, Dr Mabley?"

Lewis' eyes went round. His heavy breathing seemed to stop. "No, sir. I ran it straight to you like I was told."

"You do not know the contents of this folder?"

"N-No, sir. Like I said."

Dr Murphy visibly relaxed, or at least relaxed as much as he could. He was an oddly tense, still person. "Go home, Dr Mabley."

"Sir?"

"I said, 'Go home.'"

Dr Murphy turned and walked from the lab, leaving a gobsmacked Lewis Mabley in his wake. The contents of the files he'd given him were enough to ensure that Mabley was killed, but since so far he and only one other person in the building new he'd had any contact with them, perhaps he could just let him off with a good sacking.

Dr Murphy opened the folder and looked at the papers resting on top, the ones that had caused his heartbeat to escalate with hope. Somewhere out there, a young woman was carrying a child that wasn't quite human, a child whose biology held the key to furthering his research and, quite possibly, marking the end of human mortality.

He needed to get his hands on that baby.


	6. Chapter 6

_March 2014_

Even though her grandmother had been the first to guess, Clara didn't know how or when she would ever be able to tell her family she was pregnant. She would have to tell them something soon, however, as she was nearing the end of her first trimester and starting to show.

Clara raised her t-shirt and stood sideways in front of her bedroom mirror, examining the slight swell in her midsection that almost looked like she'd just been eating too much lately. Except there was a fullness there that betrayed the truth. She ran her hand over her belly and imagined what she would look like in a week, two weeks, a month, then six. She worried about what people would say at work—not the students, more the faculty and parents—and hoped that an unwed pregnancy wasn't as frowned upon as it was when she was in school.

Luckily she could still mask her growing midsection with flowing tops and several layers, both of which she wore to work that day. It looked like rain, but the umbrella she carried with her served a dual purpose—she didn't feel safe anymore, not completely, not ever since she had noticed the car parked outside of the school. One time she'd tried approaching it, but the driver took off down the street. She didn't see it again for days.

Clara gripped the handle of the umbrella tight in her hand as she scanned the streets outside of the school before walking through the gate. She was prepared to wallop anyone who would be stupid enough to approach her, to threaten her. A lot of people saw her as weak and fragile, especially given her sullen demeanour for the past few months, but she would fight to the death to protect herself and her baby.

She just wished the Doctor was there to fight beside her.

* * *

Devon wasn't exactly sure why he had been assigned to follow some schoolteacher, but the higher ups seemed eager to know all about her movements. He had been instructed to tail Clara Oswald, but not capture, and so far he was incredibly bored. She went to work every morning and usually went right back home, save for days when she visited the bank or the supermarket or any other mundane errands that didn't warrant this sort of surveillance.

Still, he wrote everything down as he followed her, and most of the time she didn't notice when he followed her into the underground station or hopped on the same car. One time he had even stood directly behind her, which was foolish on his part, but she hadn't even taken notice of him.

That was what made Devon perfect for this sort of job. No one ever looked at him or felt threatened by his presence. He might as well be invisib—

_Knock knock knock._

He nearly jumped out of his skin and turned to his window to see a man lowering his knuckles from the tinted glass. He shouldn't even be able to see inside, but there was something in the man's eyes that made Devon fear he could. Devon rolled down the window a few inches and stared at the man with a look of polite curiosity.

"Can I help you?" he asked.

"Yes, I rather think you could," the man replied blithely, one hand leaning on the side of the car as he peered at Devon through the large crack in the window. His expression was pleasant, but there was something dangerous in his eyes. "I need you to start your engine and drive south until you hit the Channel."

"Pardon?"

"Actually, you could keep going when you reach the Channel for all I care. Or perhaps you should head north to Scotland, or hop on a plane to Timbuktu—whatever it takes to make sure that you are never within a hundred miles of Clara Oswald ever again."

Devon blinked, but that was all that betrayed his surprise. "I don't know what you're—"

"Don't insult me by pretending not to know who she is. I've seen you parked outside this school for the past two weeks. I've watched you follow her home. I've done about all the _watching_ I'm willing to at this point, so if you don't leave, I'm going to do something about the man who is threatening the woman I care about." He removed his hand from the side of Devon's car and stood, but then crouched back down suddenly. "Oh, and tell your boss if they ask why you stopped following her that I know who they are, and that I'm going to stop them." The man raised both of his eyebrows and tilted his head forward. "Do you understand me now?"

Devon wasn't easily intimidated, especially not by some floppy-haired bloke in purple tweed and a bowtie, but he found himself nodding and doing exactly as he was told. He ignored the calls and e-mails he received from his employer and the heavy-fisted knocking at his flat door as he packed his bags and headed for the coast.

He never made it to the Channel.

* * *

The Doctor watched the car drive away and inhaled sharply through his nostrils. He knew that even though he'd scared this one off, the people watching Clara would send another one of their lackeys to follow her, or worse. And he had lied, of course—he still didn't know who was after her, but he had a pretty clear idea of what they wanted.

The school bell rang. The front doors opened, allowing the inhabitants of the building to pour out _en masse_ as if a stopper had been pulled. He knew he should leave, because Clara couldn't see him or the timelines would be altered, which would inevitably do more harm than good.

But he didn't leave. Instead, he hid around the corner of the brick wall when he spotted Clara approaching the gate and watched her turn a corner. She was about four months along now, but it barely showed. That was likely due to the loose top and jacket she wore, both of which made it difficult to tell if her midsection had swelled. She probably wanted to keep it a secret for as long as she could; even in the twenty-first century, it was still frowned upon for an unmarried teacher to suddenly show up to work pregnant with some absent man's child.

He frowned as a pang of guilty pierced his gut, swallowing hard as he watched her walk past him. She held her red umbrella in one hand and a briefcase in the other, a tired but determined look on her face as her heels clicked against the pavement. Unable to help himself, the Doctor followed her down the road, around the corner, past the grocers and the off-license and the take-away Indian restaurant they'd once visited when they were feeling peckish after visiting the Sahara. It wasn't until she reached the Estate where she lived that Clara stopped walking.

The area wasn't heavily populated, and the gentle patter of rainfall wasn't enough to mask his footsteps on the pavement behind her. He had been walking carefully at a good ten or fifteen feet behind her, but Clara was undoubtedly already aware that someone had been following her for the past few weeks.

She turned around, her long hair whipping about her shoulders as her eyes roved the spot where he'd just stood. The Doctor pressed his back against the side of the building and fought the urge to run around that corner and take her into his arms. Clara was alone and afraid and burdened with a life whose existence she didn't understand, and all he wanted to do was comfort her.

Time _can_ be rewritten, but not all of it. And most of the time, not when it should.

He heard her footsteps fade into the distance and turned to see that Clara had gone. The Doctor craned his neck upward and waited to see the light turn on in her window and left shortly after he knew she was safely inside.

* * *

Clara wished that there were days when she could not miss him, but he was always there in the back of her mind, like a song playing on the radio in another room. She wondered if he was safe, if he ever thought of her, or if he had gone and lived a thousand years and changed faces twice without sparing her a second thought. She pictured him with someone new, perhaps taller and prettier and braver than she was. She wracked her brain for anything she could have said or done that day in Christmas that would make him want her gone. All she came up with was when the truth field made her say she ran away with him because she fancied him.

It was the truth, of course, but he would have been an idiot not to have figured that out already.

Neither of them had ever talked about that night in the TARDIS. She had woken hours afterward to find the Doctor fully dressed and whirling around the TARDIS console, bouncing with renewed energy as he proposed their next adventure. He had seemed so happy that Clara didn't want to spoil the moment by talking about the status of their relationship, which was a conversation she'd never enjoyed having herself. She honestly didn't think she would want to hear what he had to say about it anyway.

The places he took her after that were breath-taking. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the shimmering isles of the seventh moon of Pindar. Well, of course that last one took place after they visited the _fifth_ moon of Pindar, where they'd nearly been attacked by a giant swarm of something that looked like insects that the Doctor had assured her were definitely _not_ insects, but "he liked the word swarm."

And then Christmas happened. And he left her.

Clara wasn't usually a big crier, but she reckoned a lot of it had to do with the pregnancy hormones. She cried while making dinner, where she actually had stop stirring the onions in the pan so she could grip the edges of the counter until her shoulders stopped shaking. She didn't cry while eating but nearly choked on sobs in the shower. Later that night she lay in bed, feeling completely numb and exhausted from all the crying. Clara stroked her midsection and released a sigh.

"I'm sorry, baby. I know this can't be good for you." Tears welled in her eyes and she swiped them away quickly. "Mummy will try to be better."

She allowed herself to cry one more time that night, because that was the first time she'd ever properly thought of herself as someone's mother.

* * *

"I want to know how they got a hold of her medical records in the first place," the Doctor said sharply, trying not sound too angry with Kate even though they had been her responsibility.

Kate shook her head and heaved a sigh of frustration. "It shouldn't have been possible."

He was pacing furiously in front of her desk, hands on his hips as he tried to sort out how one of the most secretive, heavily defensible agencies on the planet had been infiltrated by a group that had yet to cause a blip on anyone's radar. Neither he nor UNIT had been able to find any trace of the group they had decided to call Project Acorn. It made sense, apparently—Kate compared it to how weather services named tropical storms.

"It was someone inside," he surmised.

"No," she said rather curtly. "There are five people other than you and myself who know about Clara's condition, and I trust those people with my life."

"Well, let's meet these people and see which one's got their finger on the trigger."

He had seen the name listed on Clara's medical records, but either he was getting old or just too preoccupied with other matters to have realised that it Dr _Martha_ Jones who was monitoring Clara's pregnancy.

The Doctor and Kate walked into the brightly lit laboratory where he stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes fixed on Martha from the opposite side of the room. She was sitting at a stool, examining a slide on a microscope that made her frown and check the file on the table next to her. Before she could return her eyes to the microscope, she glanced up and spotted him.

He hadn't seen her in over five hundred years. He had a new face, a new body, new everything almost, but when he saw her, he struggled to suppress a smile.

And of course, she knew. Martha was always perceptive, always clever, always seeing things he didn't see. Even if she couldn't tell by just looking at him, there was a strange man entering a high-level clearance laboratory with the Head of Scientific Research, and if she had been monitoring Clara's pregnancy, she knew more than whatever they may have told her. She knew she would see him again.

Martha stood from the stool and walked around to the end of the long table. The Doctor approached her slowly, neither of them removing their eyes from each other. She smiled incredulously at him and then gave him a once over, taking in his new appearance. "I can't believe it's you."

"I can't believe it's _you_," he echoed.

Despite the situation and where they were, they both laughed and engulfed the other in a firm hug. It was amazing how the years could just melt away the moment you reunited with an old friend. It always reminded him that there were parts of him that could never die no matter how much he changed.

Martha and Kate led him into a break room with round tables and a small kitchenette. Kate locked the door so they could have some privacy, and they all sat around the table with cups of tea as they discussed the breech in security.

"But how could anyone access those records?" Martha asked in a low voice, even though Kate had assured them both that she had activated a remote scrambler that would distort their conversation should anyone try to listen in. "They were sealed shut—even I don't have permission to access them without your permission," she added, nodding to Kate.

"I've looked at the security logs," the Doctor replied. "There have been no external breeches to the server, nor any history of anyone printing copies of those files."

"No, there wouldn't be," Kate replied. "Everyone involved is under strict orders to keep the documents digital."

The Doctor shook his head disparagingly. "Easier to a hack a computer than break in and steal some files." He turned to Martha. "Of the people looking after Clara, which ones do you think would have given those files to someone?"

Martha blinked with surprise. "No one."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, Doctor!" she insisted with that same irritable tone she'd always reserved for him. "Besides, if the system wasn't hacked and the records weren't printed, then how could anyone get their hands on them?"

"That's a good question."

* * *

_December 2017_

He watched Clara rinse Sam's bloody hands underneath cold water and then place colourful plasters over the small red marks. The scrapes weren't too deep and hardly warranted bandaging up, but the plasters eased his anxiety.

"Such a brave boy," she cooed, kissing his forehead and smoothing back his hair.

Sam smiled at her before looking up to where the Doctor stood against the doorframe. The Doctor could still feel that icy panic that had gripped his hearts the moment he'd seen Sam fall. He had felt it even before he'd seen it, that surge of panic that came the moment one lost their grip and succumbed to the pull of gravity. It was that emotional connection more than the two hearts, the blood samples, and the physical similarities that solidified the fact that Sam was, indeed, _his_.

Clara stood and told Sam to go play with his toys in his room, and the boy bolted past the Doctor towards his bedroom door, clearly eager to continue playing.

Her eyes settled on him and the Doctor felt any remnants of that icy panic melt immediately. "Doctor, what's wrong?"

He smiled tightly and stood up straight. "Nothing, nothing," he said lightly with a wave of his hand. "Just let my mind wander a bit.

She frowned, brow furrowing. "You look worried."

He sighed. "I _am_ worried. Sam's not—" He made a frustrated sound. He wanted to choose his words carefully, because there was a difficulty in speaking about Sam's uniqueness without implying that there was something _wrong_ with him. "He's unique. The fact that he was even born, or rather—" He blushed. "Um, well, _you_ know."

Her eyebrows shot upward and a tiny smile tugged at her lips. "I know what?"

He averted his eyes and cleared his throat, pursing his lips primly. "Um… _conceived._"

"Oh," she said. "Right. Because you're not human?"

He leaned his elbow against the door frame and scratched the back of his head. "Yes, but more because I'm a Time Lord. We don't…" He made another frustrated sound. "Things don't work the same as with you lot."

Clara suppressed a grin, but poorly. "Could have fooled me."

She laughed nervously, but her cheeks didn't flush half as pink as his did. "That's not—"

"I know," she replied with a small nod, still smiling.

He couldn't look away from her. It was as if her eyes had their own gravitational pull on his; he could even feel himself leaning towards her.

Sam was in the room next door blowing air through his teeth as he crashed plastic toys together, making them explode. The Doctor felt like there was some sort of invisible thread connecting them all, looping behind their navels and locking together to unite them. It was a strange feeling, one that felt incredibly foreign after years spent alone in a tower on Trenzalore.

Looking at Clara, he thought of the past few weeks, the ones he'd snuck in between his conversation with her last night and breakfast that morning. He thought of how much he had wanted to reach out to her and apologise, to comfort her and reassure her that everything would be OK, but he couldn't without destroying their timelines. She looked up at him now with a smile, but there was still so much heartache in her past, none of which he'd ever meant to cause. There was still nothing he could do to fix it, but at least now he didn't have to hide from her.

"Oh!" she said with a surprised laugh when he suddenly pulled her into a warm embrace. Her arms were stiff at first, but then she wrapped them around his waist and laid her head against his chest with a sigh. "Doctor?"

"Yes?"

She took a deep breath and then released it in a shaky laugh. "Nothing."

There were all sorts of things about human life that he didn't understand. Everything was so slow and the lifestyle was so dull and repetitive, an endless cycle of going to work, buying groceries, and taking out the trash. Yet what he felt as he held Clara and listened to their son playing in the next room was something he had always longed for, but never imagined he could ever have.

"You got really worried out there, on the playground," Clara pointed out as she stepped back and to look up at him. She grinned. "Almost like a proper dad."

He suppressed a grin of his own. "Am I to take it I'm an improper one?"

"No," she said with a laugh. "Or… sort of. You've had kids before, haven't you? You said once you had a granddaughter."

He ducked his head. "That was a long time ago."

"Do you ever think about them?" she asked, her tone haunted. "Can you remember them?"

He met her eyes. "Yes."

Clara nodded, her eyes studying his face in a peculiar way. "And what was it like for them? Were you there, or were you always running? Or did they run off with you?"

What could have been a series of rapid fire questions spilled from her lips slowly, thoughtfully. The Doctor felt a twinge in his hearts because he knew why she was after these answers, but more than sadness and guilt, her inquiries gave him hope. Hope that she wanted him. Hope that she forgave him.

"It feels like trying to remember a dream," he said, shifting on his feet. He scratched the top of his head as if he could physically stir up the memories trapped beneath his skull. "I was so young when…" He coughed. "But I can remember their names and their faces, their personalities, and…" He sighed. "How much I loved them."

She placed her hand on his chest in a comforting gesture, and he met her eyes. He longed for her desperately in that moment. "What about their mother?" she asked softly. "Do you remember her?"

The Doctor found it difficult to breathe. "Yes."

He wanted to kiss her. He didn't feel he had the right to, but luckily before he was able to determine what it was he saw shining in her eyes, Sam made a particularly loud sound in the room next door that shattered the moment. They both laughed softly.

"Will you stay for tea?" she asked.

He nodded. "Sure."


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N**: Many apologies for the lengthy delay between updates! You know me... fickle as a daisy (are daisies fickle?)

* * *

They established a routine over the following week that felt rather like a dance: the Doctor would arrive in the morning (or sometime around lunch if he was running late), have a meal or two with them, accompany them while Clara ran errands (something she might never let him do again since he'd caused quite a scene by knocking over a display of chocolates at the supermarket… but oh, how Sam had laughed), and usually the night ended with him puttering around her flat, looking for something to fix or 'improve.'

The night before New Year's Eve—or New Year's Eve Eve, as he liked to call it—found the Doctor fiddling with the wires of Clara's flat screen TV while she tucked Sam into bed. He received a sharp shock while twisting one of the wires that made him hiss with pain and suck on his fingers before giving them a shake.

"You're not supposed to do that!"

Clara walked in about ten minutes later to find him lowering himself onto the sofa, remote control in hand. She eyed him with suspicion. "What have you been doing in here?"

"Nothing," he replied innocently, eyes on hers as he flicked the TV on. "Care to watch some telly?"

Unable to keep from smiling, she sank onto the sofa next to him, leaving a good six inches between them that he immediately took notice of. "I don't remember you watching telly this much."

He glanced at her. "There's really not much to do in your flat."

She continued to smile at him before eventually looking over at the screen on the wall. "What is this?"

"Hmm? Oh, Sherlock. Series 5, I think. Oh, it's my favourite."

"What? But that doesn't air until the spring."

The Doctor froze. He opened his mouth to explain but then promptly shut it.

Clara's eyes narrowed. "Doctor… What did you do to my TV?"

"Nothing that can't be undone," he assured her, finger raised. His eyes lifted to the ceiling thoughtfully. "Although… I'd ignore any weather alerts."

"Did you do something timey-wimey with my channel subscriptions?"

"They're just… a little off."

"How off?"

He winced, although she was certain he was going for a placating smile. "Couple of years?"

Clara sighed with a mixture of amusement and exasperation and then kicked off her shoes, tucking her legs underneath her as they continued to watch the screen in silence.

It was difficult for her to remain focused on the show with the Doctor sitting next to her. He'd been gone for years, his absence a huge, gaping hole in her life—and now he was there—physically, actually there—sitting on her sofa watching telly from the future. She found herself grinning at the entire situation, and the Doctor turned to her in bewilderment when he noticed her out of the corner of his eye. "What?"

"Nothing, it's just—you used to take me on all these adventures, and now I feel like we've got it in reverse. You're all cooped up in my flat watching telly on a Saturday night like a regular bloke."

Clara had been unable to mask the longing in her tone when she spoke of the way things used to be, and his gaze grew distant at the mention. She missed the TARDIS and the excitement she had always felt before stepping through those doors into another time, another world, another adventure with the Doctor.

A sort of electricity crackled between them as she thought of a host other things that she missed, like the way he would reach for her hand or tease her for not knowing what a Carpesian Fireberry was. Or that night when he'd gripped her by the waist and—

"Why are you here?"

She blurted the words out suddenly, although her tone remained gentle and curious. She might as well have spat the words in his face, given the way the Doctor flinched in response. "Sorry?"

"I feel like you're waiting for something, but I don't know what it is," she explained. She smiled sadly and lowered her eyes for a moment. "I wish I did."

He blinked several times and glanced away from her, a frown marring his face. "So you can get rid of me?"

"No!" she replied quickly. "That's not it at all. I just don't like not knowing what's going on in that head of yours."

His eyes danced as he examined her face. "I... I _want_ to be here."

"Why?" she prodded softly.

He glanced away again, his features wrought with regret. "Because I've already missed so much."

Clara took a deep breath and nodded in understanding, her gaze following the familiar contours of his jaw as it tensed. "Sam likes having you around."

His responding grin was like an involuntary reflex, one he hadn't anticipated, and he pressed his lips together to restrain it. Eyes still on the carpet, the Doctor's smile melted away when he was overcome with another emotion. He released a shallow breath and then placed his hand over Clara's where it lay on the cushion between them.

"I didn't just mean Sam."

Her chest heaved with a sudden, shaky breath that she had difficulty drawing in. She looked down at his hand over hers and told the woman who'd cried at night for four years that she could stop now, that he was back and he was touching her, but she didn't seem to understand. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes and, sensing her sudden distress, the Doctor removed his hand from hers.

She met his worried eyes and asked the one question she'd been too afraid to give voice to since she'd seen him standing in her doorway Christmas day. "Doctor, why did you send me away?"

His expression grew wistful as he watched her, the light from the telly flickering on his face. "I was trying to save you."

"From what?"

He spoke as if he'd been calculating this response for centuries, which he had. "Dying far away from home in the middle of a war. I was there for over two hundred years, Clara. You wouldn't have lasted that long."

Resentment bubbled in her chest, but her voice remained even when she spoke. "I wouldn't have had to. I could have helped you, you know. That's what I do—What I did." She raised her hand to his face and felt a sudden tremor ripple through her. Flashes of memories from her echoes danced before her eyes, his many faces flickering like the images on the TV. "It was _my_ job to save _you_."

He stared back at her hopelessly. "Clara…"

She didn't know if she could bear to hear him say another word, so she leaned forward and kissed him roughly on the cheek before wrapping her arms around his neck. He snaked his arms around her middle and she heaved a sigh of relief. She threaded the fingers of one hand through his hair, breathing deeply as she savoured the feel of him warm and solid in her arms.

There was nowhere in the world she'd ever felt more safe; even after everything, he still felt like home.

She felt tears prick the corners of her eyes when he placed a hand on the back of her head and kissed the spot right above her ear.

His voice cracked. "Clara, I've missed you."

She managed a weak laugh. "You better have."

He chuckled and dipped his face against her shoulder, heaving a sigh that warmed the fabric of her dress.

She tightened her hold on him. "Because I've missed you terribly."

The following silence witnessed a dramatic shift in mood. They grew tense in each other's arms, more out of anticipation than anything else, but neither was sure what it was they were anticipating. Her heart pounded as she leaned back and met his eyes, breathing heavily as if all the oxygen was suddenly sucked from the room. She experienced a sort of tunnel vision where he was all he could see, the only thing in the world that the light touched. He was beautiful.

It was one of those moments where she wasn't in control of what she said or did. That happens, sometimes, when you're struck by a heavy emotion that negates your ability to think logically. All she knew in that moment was that she loved him, and she'd been lying to herself for years pretending that it was more complicated than that.

So she leaned into him, heart hammering as he tensed in anticipation of her lips on his. Clara was so nervous at first that she barely had the power to purse her lips, rendering the contact hesitant and brief. She released a shaky breath against his chin and shifted back to gauge his reaction.

It was as if the kiss had immobilized him. The only part of him that moved was his eyes, which danced over her face as if she were a foreign entity that had fallen from the ceiling and landed on the sofa next to him. Clara half-expected him to pull out his sonic screwdriver and give her a once over, but instead he released a shaky breath of his own before gazing at her mouth.

She leaned forward again, and this time the Doctor met her halfway. Their lips brushed together and then slipped apart, each of them testing the waters until she placed her hand on the back of his neck and they dove in fully.

She hadn't been touched like this in a long time. When Sam was eighteen months old, she had gone out to a club one night with some friends from uni who were visiting town. She met this bloke whose name or face she couldn't even remember, but he'd been tall, thin, and blonde—a perfect candidate for the Aryan race. After consuming a bottle of wine, she had practically crawled into his lap and snogged him for God knows how long. It was only when his fingers slid between her thighs that she remembered that her son was staying at her Dad's and she wasn't some twenty-year-old girl without a care in the world. It had been nice to pretend.

That was nothing like kissing the Doctor. With other men—_ordinary_ men—she knew that their physical desires dictated their actions, whereas the Doctor always ran on emotion. She felt it pouring from his lips as he leaned into her, his hold on her firm as she shifted her head to deepen the kiss.

He moaned when she slipped her tongue over his. Clara shuddered at the sound and replied with a muffled hum against his lips, her fingers lazily threading through his hair as he tightened his arm around her waist. His reaction encouraged her to brace herself on the back of the sofa so she could straddle his waist. The Doctor's eyes went wide as he panted heavily through parted lips, hands lifted away from her in an involuntary gesture of surrender. She felt her lips twitch in a brief smile at his hesitation before she melted back into him, her lips and tongue gliding knowingly over his.

Clara sucked on his lower lip and then glanced at him when he did nothing but twitch nervously. His eyes were still as round as a rabbit's. "Doctor," she pleaded breathlessly, her lips slipping against his. "_Touch me_."

She hummed into his mouth when he lowered his hands to her waist, the warmth of his palms seeping through the fabric of her dress. She tilted her hips firmly against his and the Doctor hissed against her chin, lips breaking away from her as his arms tightened around her waist.

She stared at the back of the sofa and waited breathlessly for him to push her away or say something about what was on TV, anything to divert her attention away from what they'd been doing. He had gone rigid and remarkably still, indicating that she had gone too far and he was panicking, but then he let out a tiny whimper and shifted beneath her. Clara breathed a sigh of relief when she felt the unmistakable erection pressing into her legs. Her nose grazed his when she leaned back to look at him, and for a moment, all they did was sit there and breathe each other's air.

The Doctor placed a hand on the back of her head and kissed her again, his other hand dipping past the small of her back. Clara tucked her hands behind his back and pressed herself flush against him, whimpering as they moved against each other with rising urgency.

She whispered his name against his cheek, but then another voice responded from behind her.

"Mummy?"

She choked on a gasp and flew to her feet, turning to see Sam standing in the doorway to the living room. His chestnut hair was ruffled on top of his head and his eyes were red and puffy from crying. Clara immediately forgot the horror she felt at her son catching her and the Doctor in such a position when she saw that he'd been having more nightmares.

"Oh, my dear, no," she said sadly, walking over to kneel in front of him.

He sniffed as she smoothed back his hair. "You weren't in your room."

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," she cooed, feeling another pang of guilt stab her in the gut. "It's been so long since you've had bad dreams; I thought they'd gone away."

Sam sniffed and wiped at the tears that fell from his eyes with the sleeves of his ducky pyjamas. His attention shifted past her shoulder. "Doctor."

Clara hadn't heard him move from the couch, but when she turned around, he was standing about two feet back, watching them both curiously. She bit her lip when she saw that he'd taken off his coat so he could hold it in front of his trousers.

"Hey, little guy," the Doctor replied with a bright grin, kneeling next to Clara with a faint grunt of discomfort. "What's this I hear about bad dreams?"

Sam released a shaky sigh. "I dream I'm lost and I don't know where Mummy is. I'm all alone."

Clara continued to stroke her son's hair as he spoke to the Doctor, even though she was so uncomfortable that she wished she could just scoop Sam up and take him into his room without anyone uttering another word. Sam's nightmares broke her heart because she couldn't stop them, and while she knew that all children had bad dreams, she felt that Sam's had more to do with the part of him that wasn't human. Looking up at the Doctor's reaction, she could tell he was thinking the same thing.

"Well, that's not the case, is it? You've found her. And even if you were to lose her; you'd find her again." A faint smile tugged on his lips as he gazed at Clara. He quickly returned his eyes to Sam. "You'll never ever be alone, Sam. I promise you that."

Clara hugged the boy to her chest, her hand in his hair as she continued to gaze at the Doctor, tears blurring her vision. She felt a peculiar sense of dread in that moment, because she felt like she was getting what she'd been wanting for so long now—her two boys together with her, all of them saving each other from the pain of loneliness. It felt too good to be true, like there was a catch, a Damoclean sword hanging over their heads waiting to fall and sever the ties that bound them together.

"Let's get you back to bed," she said. "Mummy will come read you stories."

Sam turned to the doorway as she stood, stopping before entering the hallway. "Can the Doctor come too?"

She glanced up at him. "If he wants."

The Doctor followed them into Sam's tiny room, which had a small twin bed tucked against the left wall. Sam climbed under the covers, and Clara tucked him in before sitting on the edge of the bed next to him. She felt the Doctor sink on the bed behind her and she smiled, feeling the warmth of him as he leaned forward to place a comforting hand on Sam's chest.

"You know what? I've found that if you think lots of happy thoughts before falling asleep, you won't have any bad dreams."

"Really?" Sam replied hopefully.

The Doctor nodded and patted the boy's chest, leaving his hand to rest there. Clara stared down at his hand, which was nearly the size of Sam's entire upper body, and felt a lump form in her throat.

"Do you know any songs, Doctor?"

"I know quite a few songs."

"Will you sing me some?"

She breathed a tiny laugh and turned to mutter softly, "He likes it when I sing him to sleep."

She smiled reassuringly at her son and then closed her eyes when the Doctor started singing softly in a low voice. Her ear tuned out every other sound, save for her son's sniffling, as she listened to the familiar words of a song she'd never sung to Sam before.

"_You are my sunshine, my only sunshine,  
__You make me happy when skies are grey,  
__You'll never know, dear, how much I love you,  
__Please don't take my sunshine away."_

Clara struggled to remain composed as she listened to the words he sang, thinking back to nights in Sam's infancy when he would do nothing but cry and she would cry with him, softly weeping as she attempted to hum a lullaby to soothe them both. She had often wondered what it would have been like had the Doctor been there, if there was some scenario that existed in which he could be a normal father and companion to her. She had always wanted it, even though it seemed impossible, and now that he was there and he was proving that he was just as loving and wonderful as she'd imagined he'd be, she wanted it even more.

She almost laughed when she focused on her son's face. She needn't have worried about hiding her tears from him; his eyes were only on the Doctor.

Afterwards, she sang him his favourite song—the Rainbow song—and he demanded that the Doctor sing along as well. Two more renditions later, Clara kissed her boy on the forehead and wished him goodnight. His eyes drifted shut just as she closed the door behind them, and after a moment, she turned to face the Doctor.

She didn't look up at him at first; she was too afraid she'd burst into tears. He seemed to sense her distress, but when he softly spoke her name, Clara buried her face in her hands and leaned against his chest.

"You're going to leave some day," she explained, her voice remarkably even despite her rising distress. "You're going to leave, and my heart is going to break again, and I can't stand to even think about it. I can't stand it, Doctor. I can't… I can't…"

The Doctor lifted his hands to her shoulders and pushed her back, his features marred with concern. Clara wasn't so much crying as she was having a mild panic attack.

"Clara—breathe," he said, smoothing a hand against her hair. "Shh, it's OK. Look at me. Look at me, Clara. I'm here; I'm not going anywhere."

"You… you're always… going somewhere."

His eyes darted to Sam's door and then all around him, searching for a solution to her distress. Finally, he guided her towards the front door and they stepped out into the corridor, where it was cooler and more open. They left the door open a crack in case Sam called out to them, but otherwise they were alone.

Clara placed her hands on his chest and took deep, wheezing breaths that shook through her entire body on their way out. The Doctor rubbed her back in soothing circles and reassured her softly that he was there, that she was OK. She wrapped her arms around him and closed her eyes, her body calming but her heart now breaking for an entirely different reason.

It didn't matter if he stayed or not, because either way, they didn't have a happy ending. When she died, she would be leaving him behind, and the fact that she knew he could move on and find someone else to travel with, someone else to love, made her want to scream.

As if reading her mind, the Doctor sighed with resignation, his limbs growing heavier as he held her. He didn't say anything at first, but the silence that followed indicated that he was waiting to.

"Doctor?" she prompted.

"Clara, I..."

His tone frightened her. She leaned back and stared at him with wide eyes. "What? What is it?"

The Doctor's eyes sought hers and he pressed his lips together in a firm line. "I'm dying."


End file.
